I don't know how disappointed one can be with a three-goal victory at the Olympics, but I'm guessing Russia's 5-2 victory over Slovenia raised more than a few eyebrows.
The Russians territorially dominated the vastly undermanned Slovenians for spurts, who featured only one NHL'er in center Anze Kopitar. Particularly in the first period, the Russians put on sort of a shooting gallery -- Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin both beat Slovenian netminder Robert Kristan early on for a rather quick two-goal lead, but that's where things started to get a bit dicey.
And not dicey in the sense that the outcome of the game was in dispute. Dicey in the sense that Russia sort of lost that control they had over the game, the kind of control you like to see when a gold medal hopeful is playing against a team that, quite truthfully, should be massively overwhelmed by superior competition during this tournament.
So, I guess full marks to the Slovenians for turning the second and third periods into absolute knife fights. After Russia out-shot Slovenia 18-4 in the first frame, the shot totals over the next forty were just 17-10 in favor of the home team.
That, if I can dig into the mind of Zinetula Bilyaletdinov for a minute, is probably unacceptable -- especially with their toughest game of group play around the corner, against a United States team that just unloaded on the Slovakians.
Away from the mere fact that Russia didn't put Slovenia in a complete stranglehold, I thought defensively, there were more than a few breakdowns than Semyon Varlamov would've liked. Ziga Jeglic had both goals for Slovenia -- the second on a beautiful breakaway, set up by Robert Sabolic and Anze Kopitar. Jeglic flashed some speed and talent coming through the middle mostly untouched, but again, if you're Russia, you have to ask the question: if an SM-liiga washout is splitting your defensive pair, what will Canada do? The States? Sweden?
Thanks mostly to a pair of third-period goals from Valeri Nichushkin and Anton Belov, Russia was able to escape the rink with the win and the plus-three goal differential.
One final note: I thought one of the big straps, so to speak, on Russia's performance was the play of Pavel Datsyuk. He was really laboring through his minutes -- I'm guessing that if this was an Olympic competition not on Russian soil, Datysuk might be sitting this one out. He's apparently dealing with some sort of lower-body injury. On his worst day, he's still one of the better players in the league. But, Russia could really use his dynamic play -- especially when the competition stiffens.
Thanks for reading!