Rafalski's Goals Key

Some might think two goals scored in the final minutes of a 6-1 win don't mean very much. Just garbage goals, they say. In an actual NHL game, I would have to say they are right. But this is the Olympics. This is a totally different ball game and that is why the two goals Brian Rafalski had at the end of yesterday's victory over Norway could turn out to be enormous.

As we all know, the main tie breaker in Olympic hockey is goal differential. The US Americans defeated the Swiss by 2 goals, to be a + 2 in that department (and yes, Canada, it does feel pretty cool the actually beat the Swiss in regulation in our FIRST try, mind you). Before Rafalski put his away we were only up by three goals against the Norwegians. That would have been a total of +5 going into the game against Canada. That isn't good enough when you are re-seeded at the end of Group Play. But with two big goals at the end, our total is now +7 going into the Canada game. And that, friends, is a big difference.

It was quite something to see Canada only win in the shootout, thus receiving two points instead of three against the Swiss last night. Sadly, this doesn't change a thing when it comes to our Group A standings. We still need to beat Canada to win our Group. Their goal differential is 8 and ours is 7. So even if we lost in overtime and had the same amount of points, they win the tie-breaker.

The really interesting event from yesterday is Russia's loss. This is good for the US Americans. Assuming the Russians can bounce back and defeat the Czech's, this would mean all teams in Group B would have a loss. It appears in Group C that you will have one team, the Swedes or the Finns, that will finish undefeated. All that being said, the US Americans are set up well with these events, no matter the outcome against Canada. If we can win, most likely we will be the 1 or 2 seed for the tournament. If we lose, we still will be there right with all the other countries by having 6 (7 if we lose in OT) points and a pretty good goal differential assuming we don't get trounced by Canada. And depending how the chips fall, we could sneak into that 4 seed and receive a bye in the next round.

Point is, the Games are off to an excellent start for our boys. Two wins so far, Rafalski's two extra goals padding the goal differential, and some of the other countries haven't done what they are capable of. We are set up for a pretty good seed going into the elimination round. Now, none of this means much once you get there because at that point it is an entirely different ball game.

But I'll take this start any day of the week. By the way, with these two wins we have now eclipsed our win total from Torino. Just sayin...