The first ten minutes of Friday's semifinal game between Team USA and Team Canada was as frenetic as men's hockey has been in Sochi over the past week and change. Neither team trapped, both sides forechecked, and chances were exchanged both ways by some of the world's most skilled hockey players.
A game this good deserves great goaltending, and Carey Price and Jonathan Quick provided it. Price was arguably busier in the first half of the period, stoning American forward Phil Kessel on several opportunities, robbing Ryan Kesler, and gloving a John Carlson shot through traffic.
Quick, however, was just as good in the games latter ten minutes as Canada began to churn the game in their direction. Quick faced five difficult shots in the the final ten minutes of the contest - including a Sidney Crosby partial breakaway. The former Conn Smythe winner was up to the task and then some.
Canada began to dictate the pace as the game went along and looked dominant towards the end of the period, even starting a couple of penalty-killing shifts in the American end of the rink. But the Phil Kessel line -- dangerous all tournament -- demonstrated that they can still take Canadian defenders out wide, and generated several quality looks early in the period in precisely that manner.
If there's one concern for Team USA, it's that aside from the Kessel, Joe Pavelski, James van Riemsdyk line, their players weren't generating much. If there's a concern for Canada, it's keeping that line off the board.
To accomplish that presumably Canada will make some adjustments at intermission. One notable one that might pay dividends? Bigger notepads:
4 Canada players strain to see Claude Julien's tiny little notepad pic.twitter.com/meQL4MkfuV
— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) February 21, 2014