Olympics: Germany vs Belarus

Germany vs Belarus was the 2nd big upset game at the 2010 Olympics coming shortly after the Russian's were stunned by the Slovaks. The Germans who played so well against the Swedes and struggled against the Finns was expected to stomp out the Belorussians in this qualification game. The Belorussians had struggled against all their opponents and was the clear cut choice to finish last in Pool C. The Germans got on the board quickly after capitalizing on a bad penalty taken by Konstantin Zhakorov with a goal by Florida Panther Denis Seidenberg. The Belorussians got back in the game however 5 minutes later with an individual effort from Aleksei Ugarov. The Belorussians kept the Germans on their feet as the period ended and it continued into the second period. 8 minutes into the 2nd period they responded again on a nice feed from Sergei Kostitsyn. Both sides started to trade chances shortly after leading into the 3rd. Belarus got a timely goal from Sergei Kostitsyn at the 11 minute mark. The Germans refused to give up however and got two quick goals from John Tripp and Marcel Goc to tie up the game. German defenseman Alexander Sulzer took a bad hooking penalty and Belarus quickly regained the lead with a shot from Ruslan Salei. With two minutes left Aleksei Kalyuzhny got his second goal of the game and ended all hopes for Germany, who now will finish last in the Pool. Great game despite it being 2 lower level teams. I enjoyed Germanys brief comeback which added a lot to the excitement of the game. I thought German was going to finish it off several times but Belarus clearly wanted this more. Sergei Kostitsyn was phenomenal again, I was throughly impressed as Belarus was suposed to be clearly weakened by the loss of Grabovsky and the elder Kostitsyn Andrei. Sergei totaled 4 points this game and now leads Belarus going into the next round with 5 points. Alexander Sulzer was this games poor performer as he lead to the tying goal with a stupid hooking call. Another major bust was the Germans top line featuring Goc, Sturm, and Hecht who was on both of the last 2 goals. Considering the line has 3 bonifide NHLers plus the defense pairing was Christian Erhoff and Denis Seidenberg it's pretty pathetic.

The Germans will need to dig pretty deep next round and the Belorussians just need to keep the momentum going and not have too high hopes and keep it simple as they were expected to finish low in the Olympic games anyways.

Period 1
Goal 1 - Dennis Seidenberg - Marco Sturm, Marcel Goc PP
Goal 1 - Aleksei Ugarov
Period 2
Goal 2 - Aleksei Kalyushny - Sergei Kostitsyn, Nikolai Stasenko
Period 3
Goal 3 - Sergei Kostitsyn - Konstantin Koltsov
Goal 2 - John Tripp - Andre Rankel
Goal 3 - Marcel Goc - Jochen Hecht
Goal 4 - Ruslan Salei - Aleksei Kalyushny, Sergei Kostitsyn PP
Goal 5 - Aleksei Kalyushny - Sergei Kostitsyn, Konstantin Koltsov

In Net
Belarus - Vitali Koval
Germany - Thomas Greiss