Jaromir Jagr said he should have known better. Veteran players are not supposed to try and deke through the neutral zone with their heads down.
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Jagr's mistake proves costly against Russia
- February 21, 2010 10:53 PM |
- By Michael Traikos
Story provided by
VANCOUVER -- Jaromir Jagr said he should have known better.
Veteran players are not supposed to try and deke through the neutral zone with their heads down. Not in the Olympics. Not when the score is 2-1 in the third period. And especially not when Alex Ovechkin is roaming the ice like a hungry lion looking for his next meal.
But sometimes players make mistakes. And Sunday that mistake helped Russia defeat the Czech Republic 4-2 in their final game of the preliminary round -- thus earning them a bye to the quarter-finals -- while also furthering Ovechkin's status as one of the game's most dangerous players.
"Before you ask me the question, I know that I made a mistake," a smiling Jagr said after the game. "I don't want to say the same thing many times. It was a big mistake."
When asked if he meant getting hit was the mistake, Jagr shook his head. The hit he could live with. What pained him was that after being knocked down, Russia skated up the ice and Evgeni Malkin scored what ended up being the game-winning goal.
"Like I said, I don't really care how I feel," the 38-year-old said. "If something hurts, it always heals. But the mistake is not that easy to forget. The hit, I don't really care. But the mistake was the turnover I made. They scored a goal. That hurt me the most."
Perhaps it was a lesson for Jagr. The veteran forward has spent the last two seasons in Russia's Continental Hockey League, where he might have been able to get away with a similar move against weaker competition. But against an opportunistic NHL player such as Ovechkin, who was ranked 28th in the National Hockey League with 145 hits prior to the Olympics, those types of plays usually end with the puckhandler on the ice and the puck in the opposition's net.
"If it was legal or if it wasn't legal, I made a mistake," Jagr said. "I shouldn't do it. I should have done something different. If I had have known this was going to happen, I wouldn't have done it. But you don't have much time. I didn't see anybody who I could pass to and I tried to hold the puck a little longer and it was a mistake. If I had have dumped it in it would have been a different story."
For Russia, it was the type of play that head coach Vyacheslav Bykov might have envisioned after deciding to stack his top forward line with three of the world's most exciting players. In the previous two games, Pavel Datsyuk had centred Washington Capitals forwards Ovechkin and Alexander Semin. But after losing in an overtime shootout to Slovakia, the team replaced Datsyuk with Evgeni Malkin.
The move apparently worked. Malkin scored twice and the line combined for seven points yesterday.
"There's a lot of good lines in the Olympics and in the league also," said Czech defenceman Tomas Kaberle. "But this might be one of the top dangerous lines."
The trio, which has combined for 93 goals and 219 points in the NHL this season, played a part in three of the four goals yesterday. None was more important than the one that put Russia ahead 3-1 at 1:49 in the third period.
Immediately after Ovechkin levelled Jagr, Russian defenceman Fedor Tyutin picked up the loose puck and found Semin streaking down the wing. Semin then fed Malkin with a cross-crease pass for his second goal of the game.
Despite having a limited grasp of English, Russian defenceman Anton Volchenkov summed up the play perfectly.
"Big hit," he said. "And then we score, too."
About the Author
- Bruce Arthur Bruce Arthur is the National Post's national sports columnist. A Vancouver native, he has been with the Post since 2001, and a columnist since 2005. He is covering his second Olympics, after the 2008 Games in Beijing. He expects these Games to be slightly less propagandistic, and for China to win slightly fewer medals.
- Joe O'Connor Joe O'Connor is a roving sports feature writer with an open-ended beat. He joined the National Post in 2002, and has spent the past seven years bouncing from sport to sport, offering fresh perspectives and delivering unique stories wherever he goes. Whether it has been getting Don Cherry to open up about his love life; George Chuvalo to talk about heartbreaking loss; or racing down the side of a mountain with former Crazy Canuck, Dave Irwin, the veteran Postie chases a story wherever it leads. Before joining the newspaper he was a two-time silver medalist at the National Magazine Awards. Vancouver will be his first Olympics.
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