Brad Richards snapped Team Canada's scoreless streak of 129 minutes, 11 seconds with a first period goal off the Czech Republic's Tomas Vokoun.

Canada checks off Czechs
By Phil Coffey | NHL.com
Feb. 21, 2006

TORINO, Italy -- Team Canada made several key discoveries in Tuesday's 3-2 victory over the Czech Republic in the final game of the preliminary round.

The Canadiens saw the value of a fast start, jumping to a 3-0 lead. They saw the value of staying out of the penalty box, with the Czechs piling up shots in the second period thanks to time with the man advantage. They saw the value of composure, a quality that was lacking at times against the Czechs, who seemed destined to tie this game up.

But Team Canada also saw the value of tremendous goaltending as Martin Brodeur shook a slight knee injury to turn in a scintillating win for the Canadians, who finished the five-game, preliminary round with a 3-2 record. The Czechs finished the preliminary round at 2-3.

"It was a big win coming off of the loss (to Finland)," Martin Brodeur said. "We're big international rivals. We'll take a lot of positives from this game, although there were some negatives. against one of our international rivals," Brodeur said.

In Broduer's mind what was the biggest thing Canada needed to take from the game?

"Composure," he said. "We had the lead, 3-0. Then they got back in it when I gave up a bad goal and they scored on the 5-on-3. You can't make mistakes in these games.

"The worst thing for us was probably getting the early lead," Brodeur said. "We sat back after that, but in the end, we held on and got a good performance out of our guys."

Canada jumped from the blocks first and looked about ready to run the Czechs out of town. Tampa Bay's Brad Richards opened the scoring at 7:37 with a shot from the slot that surprised Czech goalie Tomas Vokoun. The goal broke a 128:11 scoreless streak for Canada and you could almost see the tension leaving the Canadian bench.

After Czech defenseman Frantisek Kaberle was boxed for hooking at 10:45, Canada went to the power play and converted when Martin St. Louis took a Vincent Lecavalier pass in the right corner, walked in along the goal line and slapped the puck past Vokoun from a seemingly impossible angle at 11:19.

Nearing the end of the first, the Czechs seemed to be sorting things out and getting into the flow, but a point shot by Canadian defenseman Chris Pronger appeared to deflect off the stick of Ales Kotalik and flew past Vokoun.

"Our past two games, we have been guilty of trying to make one more pass before shooting the puck," Canadian winger Simon Gagne said. "We tried to start better tonight and score a couple of quick goals and it was a big plus for us when we did that. Overall, I think we played pretty well defensively."

The Canadians held an 8-7 edge in shots after one period, the last such edge of the game. The Czechs came into period two with a new look as Vokoun was pulled in favor of Milan Hnilicka.

"I just had a bad day and when they got the first goal, it just snowballed," Vokoun said. "Sometimes those things happen. When things start to go wrong, they go wrong and today, I had a bad day."

Right from the get-go the pressure on Brodeur was intense in the middle period. At 7:26, Ales Hemsky and Petr Cajanek crashed the Canadian net, banging away at the puck before Brodeur was able to smother the puck. At 8:26, Tomas Kaberle rang a shot off the left post.

The Czechs finally got one into the net at 13:46 as defenseman Pavel Kubina scored with a two-man advantage. Jarome Iginla had gone off for tripping at 2:31 and was joined by defenseman Rob Blake at 3:32. Jaromir Jagr made the pass across to Kubina, who had plenty of time and space to set up his shot, driving the puck past Brodeur's stick side.

The Czech Republic battled back to cut the lead to 3-2, but Team Canada was able to hold off the charge.

Canada escaped the second without further damage, but the Czechs skated away feeling pretty good about the 14-6 shot edge.

"We put a lot of pucks on him," Martin Rucinsky said of Brodeur. "We can't get frustrated. He is one of the best goalies in the world, and we saw why tonight.

"We picked it up in the second and third periods, but we'll have to play better."

Cajanek made it a one-goal game at 2:42 of the third period, beating Brodeur with a knuckler from the right side that fooled Brodeur.

"He surprised me a little bit," Brodeur said. "I wasn't ready for him to pass there and I really wasn't ready for him to shoot. It slid between my glove and pad. I wasn't too pleased after that one, but I came back strong."

In all, Brodeur stopped 11 of 12 shots in the third period, while Canada was limited to just two shots.

Despite the disparity in shots, the Canadians weren't terribly displeased with the game. It marked a pressure game against a quality opponent and they came out with the win and stressed they are continuing to get their game together.

"We talked about bringing five guys back and we wanted to give them the outside shot. Marty will make those saves," defenseman Rob Blake said. "We got the lead and we did sit back, we sat back too much.

"Now the preliminaries are over and the intensity is going to be there," Blake said. "It's win or go home now."

"If you look at recent Canadian games, there has been tremendous improvement on a lot of fronts," defenseman Chris Pronger said. "We're trying to play smart hockey and we did that tonight in the first period. They pretty much took it to us in the second. They got a spark after their first goal and we played a little cautiously and Marty made some big saves."