Men's Hockey has reached the gold medal game in the 2014 Winter Olympics and we will see Canada take on Sweden. The game will take place on Sunday February 23rd and has a start time of 7:00 am (ET). The game will be televised on NBC and Live Streaming at NBCOlympics.com. Current odds have Canada listed as -205 favorites, while the total sits at 4.5 U -165.
Analysis: The Canadians had a dominate defensive performance vs the United States as they shut them out 1-0 to move on to the Gold medal game. Team Canada just never allowed the USA to get anything going offensively as the game seem to be played mostly in front of the U.S. goal. The win has now put them into a position to defend their 2010 Gold Medal they won in their home country of Vancouver. Not since the Soviet Union has a nation managed to win back-to-back gold medals in the Olympic men's hockey tournaments. Canada also will aim to win Olympic gold outside of North America for the first time since 1952, when it beat the U.S. for gold at the Oslo Games. Canada has played tremendous defense in these games and have be led by Carey Price, who has a .963 save percentage and 0.74 GAA in these Olympics. Canad has scored just 14 goals thus far led by Drew Doughty, who has 4 of them. Canada is 12-3-1 all time vs Sweden in the Olympics, but just 2-3-1 since 1984.
Sweden is after its second gold medal of the last three Winter Games. The Swedes won Olympic Gold eight years ago in Turin, claiming their second-ever gold medal in men's hockey. Sweden also won gold in at the 1994 Lillehammer Games. Sweden earned its place in Sunday's game thanks to a win over a geographical rival, beating Finland 2-1 in all-Nordic semifinal clash. Carey Price has been solid for Canada, but Henrick Lundqvist has been very solid as well, posting a 5-0 record, while posting a .953 save percentage and a 1.2 GAA. Like Canada, Sweden hasnt been all that explosive but the have scored 3 more goals (17) than Canada in Sochi. They are led by Erik Karlsson, who leads the team in points (8) and goals (4). If Sweden is able to win again on Sunday, it will join Canada as the only nations to win two gold medals since NHL players were first allowed to participate in the Olympics at the 1998 Nagano Games.
Prediction: Well I will go with what I know best and that's to take the Under here. Both goaltenders have been on fire in these games and the offenses haven't had to do allot because of that. Both Canada and Sweden are comfortable playing a 1-0 or 2-1 type game as they know they have two amazing defenses to fall back on. I will go with the hot goaltending over the mediocre and look for no more than 3 goals to be scored in this one.
Many thanks to CBS Sports & The Sports Network for providing the info needed for this article.
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