Russia (bbabo.net), - The Russian national team suffered its first defeat at the Olympic hockey tournament. In a spectacular shootout with the Czech team, overtime was required, in which the opponent turned out to be stronger - 6:5.
The match against the Czechs had no special tournament significance for the Russian team: our hockey players got a ticket to the quarterfinals thanks to victories over Switzerland (1:0) and Denmark (2:0). But the match was extremely important in terms of our team's search for its identity. There was not even a hint of that sparkling, exciting hockey that the Russians showed in December at the First Channel Cup. The head coach of the national team Alexei Zhamnov was also dissatisfied with what he saw, which he honestly admitted to reporters:
"It's good that we have two wins. But for us the most important thing is to have a game. Then the opponents will be more difficult. We need the guys to create more chances. These nuances need to be corrected."
To begin with, the coaching staff edited the first link, which did not score a single point in the two opening matches. A bunch of Vadim Shipachev and Nikita Gusev was broken. To Shipachev in the top three sent his partner in the Moscow "Dynamo" Stanislav Galiev, and Gusev moved to the second link. In addition, Nikita Chibisov was promoted from the fourth link to the first. Mikhail Grigorenko proceeded in the opposite direction.
Only the third five remained unchanged, having built two of the three goals of the Russian team in the first two matches.
The Czechs became our first high-profile rival at the Olympics. And the Russians started this meeting very optimistically. Already in the fifth minute, Vladimir Tkachev opened the score, and Gusev became one of his recipients. True, the Czechs gradually pulled the initiative into their own hands, and in the 13th minute they completely recouped. Numerical superiority was realized by Tomasz Kundratek - 1:1. Tellingly, according to the results of the first period, the Czechs scored twice as many shots on target as ours (12 against 6).
In the second period, most of our players already scored (for the first time in the tournament). At the 33rd minute, Nikita Nesterov scored, and Gusev was again in the assistants. It seemed that things were getting better for the Russians again, but the ending of the 20-minute period turned out to be terrible. Dmitry Voronkov played irresponsibly at the boards: his foul against Lukas Sedlak led to the fact that our team ended up in the minority for five minutes, and Dmitry himself went to the locker room.
The opponent used the numerical advantage to the maximum: the Czech team not only equalized the score, but also took the lead. David Krejci and Michael Spaczek distinguished themselves - 3:2. At the very beginning of the third period, Arseniy Gritsyuk came out on the ice, serving a penalty for Voronkov, but the Czechs scored more by inertia: in the 44th minute, Lukas Glock hit with a wrist throw - 4:2.
It seems that the Russian team needed just such a shake-up in order to play the hockey that was expected of it. Less than a minute later, Kirill Semyonov coolly guarded the rebound and reduced the gap in the score - 3:4. And three minutes later, Gritsyuk performed great, whom Gusev brought to a rendezvous with the Czech Godkeeper Shimon Grubets - 4:4.
Two more minutes and Chibisov, having laid a turn behind another's gate, left and threw from the right face-off circle - 5:4!
True, the Czech hockey players showed their character, although after such a comeback the Russians could break down. A throw from the front of our goalkeeper Ivan Fedotov took Tomas Gika by surprise - 5:5.
In the remaining 11 minutes of the third period, hockey was double-edged enough for both teams to score, but before the siren, the score had not changed.
In overtime, the teams remained three. True, the Czechs spent the last two minutes of extra time in four: in the minority at the most inopportune moment of our left Alexander Nikishin. This moment became decisive, Libor Sulak brought victory to the Czechs.
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