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Carolina Hurricanes Captain Eric Staal is having a very good Olympics so far for Team Canada. He is currently second on the team in scoring with 5 points and has a +5 rating, also good for second best on the team.
- Staal 1G 4A 5P +5
- Crosby 3G 3A 6P +1
- Heatley 4G 2A 6P +0
- Iginla 5G 0A 5P +4
- Toews 0G 5A 5P +7
After they lost to USA on Sunday night, Canada's coach, Mike Babcock rewarded the Thunder Bay native by moving him up to the first line with Sidney Crosby and Jarome Iginla. That strategy worked very well last night as Staal set up both Crosby and Iginla for goals helping Canada to defeat Germany, 8-2. He finished the night with three assists.
The Canadians will be taking on Team Russia tonight in a battle between two gold medal favorites. Things did not work out as planned for either of these teams though as early round losses put them in the unenviable position of one of them going home without a medal.
Will Staal and company be able to neutralize Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Pavel Datsyuk and friends? This should be a great game.
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Team USA will also be back in action as they take on Team Switzerland at 3 p.m. this afternoon. Hurricanes defenseman Tim Gleason has also done very well for the Americans.
The top seeded team earned a first round bye and will be hoping that the Swiss are a bit tired after gutting out a tough, 3-2 shootout win over Belarus Tuesday.
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Tuomo Ruutu and Team Finland will take on the Czechs tonight at 10 p.m. Ruutu has also been one of his team's best players as the Hurricanes have been very well represented in these Olympics. Joni Pitkanen will be sitting this game out though because he was suspended one game for a high hit against Sweden's Patric Hornqvist.
Will the Finns go with Miikka Kiprusoff or Niklas Backstrom? They have two elite goalies to choose from.
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If you lose, you go home. And four very good hockey teams will be going home disappointed after today's contests. We will have an open game thread up and running for the USA game sometime before 3.