The US lost to Russia last night 3-1 and looked pretty bad in doing it. The Russians practically skated circles around the Americans. The only thing that kept them in it most of the game was Esche. He faced 45 shots, alot of them very good ones, and only let in 3. On the other side, The Russian goalie, a guy who's only played 2 NHL games, only had to face 21. And most of the US shots were pretty harmless. While it is true that these games mean nothing, you still want to score some goals and win a game and get that confidence up. The end of the game started to get kind of nasty too. Keith Tkachuk took two runs from behind at Gonchar (the 2nd with a minute left in the game got him kicked out). Then apparently some American fans started throwing beer and shit on the Russian bench after Kasparitis took a swing at Jason Blake. Finally, after the game was over, not all the US players (Brett Hull was one I clearly noticed) stayed on the ice for the after game stuff (MVP of the game etc.). They play Slovakia today, and if they don't win, there should be plenty of cause for concern.

On the other hand, the Russians looked a hell of a lot better than I thought they would. Maybe it had something to do with them playing the US, or the US not caring\trying very hard, don't know. But man can they skate. Kovalev scored a beauty of a goal, splitting two US players and then roofing it on Esche. Afineganov (sp?) was everywhere. And their goalie played not bad either. I'm still confident they'll lose Saturday night to Canada, but it might not be a cakewalk.