Men’s Olympic Tourny Underway

Day 1 of the Men’s Olympic Tournament has concluded, when all teams who were expected to win, did. The United States kicked the day off with a 3-1 win over a defensive minded Swiss team. The US team had some pretty looking plays from their younger guys, like David Backes, who went coast to coast for a goal. Devils Captain (and US Captain) Jamie Langenbrunner said after the game that the team has “room to grow” as one. Hopefully, that happens quickly because of how the tounrmament favorites in Canada and Russia looked.

Canada drubbed Scandanavia’s worst hockey team, Norway, 8-0. Interestingly enough, the game was 0-0 after the first period. That all quickly changed when Canada started to roll on the power play. Jerome Iginla had himself a hat-trick in the victory.

In the night-cap, the offensive heavy Russian team, lead by Alex Ovechkin, handeled Latvia easily in an 8-2 win. The Devils new superstar Ilya Kovalchuk had himself a pretty one time goal in the third (and an assist on a Malkin goal) when the game was already out of Latvia’s reach. Ovechkin had two goals in the win.

Martin Brodeur will get his first start of the Olympic Games Thursday when the Canadians take on the Swiss at 7:30PM ET and the USA will play Norway at 3:00PM ET.