Sochi, Russia (SportsNetwork.com) – James van Riemsdyk, Dustin Brown and David Backes tallied in a three-goal first period, as the United States put 32 years of frustration to rest and gained a spot in the semifinals thanks to a 5-2 decision over the Czech Republic on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Zach Parise and Phil Kessel also lit the lamp for the Americans, who hadn’t beaten the Czechs — or its previous incarnation as Czechoslovakia — in Olympic play since 1980 and will face Canada in a Friday semifinal.<\/p>\n
The defending gold medalist Canadians squeaked past Latvia, 2-1, on a late power-play marker from Shea Weber.<\/p>\n
Ryan Suter added three assists and Ryan Kesler picked up two more helpers to back a 21-save effort by Jonathan Quick.<\/p>\n
Ales Hemsky recorded both scores for the Czechs, who came up short in their quest to medal for the first time since taking bronze in Torino eight years prior.<\/p>\n
Starter Ondrej Pavelec was pulled early in the second period after yielding four goals on 12 shots. Alexander Salak finished up with 12 stops.<\/p>\n
Van Riemsdyk measured Pavelec from the goal line to the right of his net just 1:39 after the drop of the puck, but Hemsky was credited with the tying score on a scramble in front at 4:31.<\/p>\n
Pavelec was rescued by his post on a Kessel drive minutes later, but the iron was no reinforcement after Brown was left alone at the left side to accept a Backes pass and score into a half-open net to make it 2-1 for the USA at 14:38.<\/p>\n
Backes sent the Americans to intermission with a 3-1 edge, scoring just ahead of the buzzer by taking a Ryan Suter miss that caromed off the back boards and tucking it home from the right side.<\/p>\n
The end boards factored into the USA’s fourth goal of the contest, as Joe Pavelski’s point blast went wide, but Parise alertly followed up with a chance from the goal line off the carom at 9:31.<\/p>\n
Kessel sped to the net and tapped in a long Ryan Kesler cross-ice feed to make it 5-1 for the USA and officially welcome Salak to the game just after the two-minute mark of the third.<\/p>\n
Quick was finally beaten again on a blistering drive from Hemsky from between the circles with seven minutes to play, but the seasoned Czechs had nothing left for a comeback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sochi, Russia (SportsNetwork.com) – James van Riemsdyk, Dustin Brown and David Backes tallied in a three-goal first period, as the United States put 32 years of frustration to rest and gained a spot in the semifinals thanks to a 5-2 decision over the Czech Republic on Wednesday. Zach Parise and Phil Kessel also lit the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nhl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}