Swiss upset Russians

In what is surely one of the biggest hockey upsets in years, the Swiss knocked off the Russians, 3-2 in overtime, today in their WJC quarterfinal game. The Swiss trailed 2-1 in the final minute of play but tied it up with 33 seconds left and then won it late in overtime, both times on goals from Portland's Nino Niederreiter.

By rights, Russia should have crushed the Swiss - and they did outshoot them 52-31. But strong goaltending from the Swiss and an uncharacteristically weak group of forwards on this year's Russian team kept the game low scoring.

Think about it - last year the Swiss weren't even in the A group, they were in the B pool and had to win that tournament just to qualify for this year's WJC A pool. Their goal going into this tournament was probably just to avoid being relegated to the B pool again. Then they lost their two best defencemen - Luca Sbisa and Roman Josi - over the course of the tournament and had to play today's game without them. And they still won, and so they are now guaranteed to play for at least a bronze medal....forget about just avoiding relegation, they will finish no worse than 4th in the standings. Good story.

Switzerland now must play Canada in tomorrow's semifinal. The Canadians beat the Swiss 6-0 in the round-robin in a game that was more lopsided than the score suggests - so some might say this is a cakewalk into the gold medal game now for Canada. But if the Swiss play tomorrow like they played today, and Canada plays tomorrow the way they played the first 50 minutes against the USA, Canada might be in for a rude surprise.

I don't see it though....I think you have to expect Canada to win that game.

USA is playing Finland right now (2-0 USA midway through the 2nd) and the winner of that game plays Sweden in the other semifinal tomorrow night. A Canada-USA gold medal game would be a beauty, wouldn't it......

One other thought that occurred to me seconds after Niederreiter's OT goal.....does this make the collapse against Canada sting worse for the USA? Had the USA hung on to beat Canada, it would be them getting the "free pass" into the gold medal game instead of Canada. Instead they have to beat Finland and then Sweden (who look really good this year too) to get there.