USA vs. Russia Game Preview

6:30 am central time puck drop. In other words, an excuse to begin your booze-filled-Saturday off with a bang.

 Russia 1-0

•  Beat Slovenia (a team with 1 nhl'er) 5-2. Score was closer than the game actually was. Russians out shot Slovenia 35-14. 
• Malkin, Ovechkin & Datsyuk are obviously the guys to watch in this one for Russia. Have the traitor they call Kovalchuk and other young studs like Nichushkin and Tarasenko.
• 16/25 of their players are NHL'ers 
• Varlamov was in net for their first win, played OK. We may see Bobrovsky on Saturday. 
• Overall, they have a lot of firepower upfront. Not very big overall but a few of their blue liners can hit. 

USA 1-0

• Beat Slovakia (a team with 12 NHL'ers) 7-1. US dominated the game from start to finish, there was a little scare early on in the second but nothing like the scare Russia had throughout half of the game.
• Stastny had 2 goals, Carlson had an absolute snipe of a goal top cheese.
• David Backes was out there LAYING bodies, look for him to do the same against the fuckin russians.
• Kaner looked just like the Kaner we know and love. The puck was on a string and he was dancing around like he was that american luger
• I thought Quick looked shaky. The lone goal was just a shot that beat him glove side, looked like he wasn't seeing the puck very well all night long. Only faced 23 shots, but he will get the start again on Saturday.

This is a prelim game, so whats at stake? Well, the winner will likely finish first in group A which will earn them a bye into the quarterfinals. The loser could still earn a bye but will need a large victory in their final prelim game to do so. And its the fucking Russians who doesn't want to kick their faces in?

USA USA USA!