Kings In The 2008 World Championships Part VI

Sully and Brownie Spank Norway

Team USA romps Norway 9-1 in the final game of the qualifying round. The players notching goals were Dustin Brown, Phil Kessel, Patrick Kane, Paul Martin, Zach Parise, and Brandon Dubinsky with a hat trick. For this showing, Brownie actually doesn’t dominate the US in ice time. The player with the most ice time was Patrick O’Sullivan! Brownie got 13:12 of ice time (0:52 average) compared to Sully’s 18:48 (0:59 average). But from here Brownie dominated Sully in all other aspects of the score sheet. He got 2 goals, 1 assist, 4 shots on net, ended at a +2, and had 2 penalty minutes for slashing. Sully had 1 assist, 4 shots on net, was even in the plus/minus column, and had 2 penalty minutes for tripping.

Something else that I can’t quite understand in looking at the stat sheet was this. These are the stats for the top line for the US. Why the freak do the Dmen have shifts that are 10 seconds LESS on average than the forwards?? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I mean, I know I’m not watching the game, but c’mon, what’s going on here?!

The US blasted Norway with 48 shots while Robert Esche faced only 18. The Norwegian captain Tommy Jakobsen said, “Simply, today we got spanked.”

The US currently sits in 3rd place in the Qualification Round in Group F. They will play Finland (2) on Wed. 14th and the winner will go on to play either Canada or Norway in the Gold Medal game. If the US losses on Wednesday, they will play for the Bronze Medal.

Lost On The Score Sheet

Just like the heading says, Raitis Ivanans had another no show in terms of numbers produced, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t contributing in other ways. I can attest to this notion being that I am (and most likely the reader is) a Kings fan. What’s on the ice isn’t always reflected on the stats sheet. Although, when it is… I just want to bury my head in the sand. But I digress. On Monday, May 12th, Latvia lost to Germany 5-3 and there were penalties galore. Maybe this is why Raitis had only 4:45 of ice time since he’s not a special teams guy, by any means. But the game was sprinkled with penalties until the end of the game when an apparent melee broke out and one guy got 2 minutes for “Illegal or Dangerous Equipment.” Again, not sure what that is. (I would like to see what causes a ref to make that call and for “fisticuffs”).

This was Ivanans’ (Latvia) last game of the tournament as they did not place in the top 4 of the Group (F).

Lubo and Kopi

So where are Lubomir Visnovsky and Anze Kopitar now that the tournament has gone further into its rounds? After checking out the stats sheets, it appears that since Slovakia was ranked last in Group C after the Preliminary Round, they were sent to the Relegation Round. Same thing happened with Slovenia in Group B and was sent to face Slovakia in the Relegation Round (best of 3) where Slovakia won in 2 games. This means that Slovakia gets invited back to the Championship tournament in 2009 in Switzerland while Slovenia is relegated to Division I.

Slovenia played 5 games in this tournament and lost…. 5. I recommend telling Kopi he’s awesome and will kick ass next season the next time any of you see him. Guy can’t catch a break! So both Lubo and Kopi are officially done in the tournament.