Jagr turns back the clock, leads Czechs' 3-1 win
The U.S. men's hockey team watched various amounts of Canada's dismantling of Norway in the Olympic opener and came away with a similar conclusion.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Jaromir Jagr, out of the NHL for two years and now a role player rather than one of hockey's big names, scored a goal and set up another late in the second period and the Czech Republic repeated its 2006 Olympic hockey victory over rival Slovakia by winning 3-1 on Wednesday night.
Jagr, a five-time NHL scoring champion and two-time Stanley Cup winner who now plays in Russia's Kontinental Hockey League, flashed his former brilliance by creating goals on two of the six shifts he played in the pivotal second period of the Olympic opener for both teams.
Tomas Vokoun, the NHL save percentage leader for Florida, made 34 saves and Patrik Elias and Tomas Plekanec also scored for the Czechs, who took gold and bronze medals in the first three Olympics featuring NHL players. The Czechs won despite being outshot 35-24.
Jagr, once the youngest player to score in a Stanley Cup finals game at age 19 but now 38, had barely played in the second period before putting the Czechs up 2-1. Jagr collected Roman Cervenka's outlet pass inside the blue line and beat goalie Jaroslav Halak with a wrist shot between the pads at 17:56.
Back in the Czech Republic, where a million-plus fans turned out to greet Jagr and the Czech players after their breakthrough victory in the first Olympics featuring NHL players in Nagano, it probably felt like 1998 all over again.
Barely two minutes later, Jagr — his hands still among the softest in the game — gathered Marek Zidlicky's shot from the point on a power play created by Zdeno Chara's hooking penalty and fed it to Tomas Plekanec for a goal with only two seconds left in the period.
Jagr appeared to be clutching his right hand in pain on the bench earlier in the period, but there was nothing wrong when he returned to the ice.
Jagr, his best seasons far behind him, was inspired and energized throughout, clearly motivated by playing in what almost certainly will be his final Olympics.
His Czech teammates, the bronze medalists in Turin after beating previously unbeaten Slovakia 3-1 in the quarterfinals, took their cue from No. 68 to control a talented Slovakian team that possesses 13 NHL players — including Chara, the NHL's top defenseman last season.
With 29 NHLers between the teams — representing two countries that were joined until 1993 — this was easily the best matchup of the first two days of the Olympic tournament. Both countries turned out large blocks of fans, the first time in the Vancouver Games that red-and-white Canadian maple leafs weren't dominant in a noisy Canada Hockey Place.
The fans held up multicolor signs, hoisted huge flags, danced and sang during a party-like night in which Jagr turned back the clock nearly 20 years to his prime, when played alongside Mario Lemieux in Pittsburgh to form one of the NHL's best scoring duos of the last half-century.
There was a lot to get the fans excited early on, including a puck that lay inches away from the goal line before Halak realized where it was and covered it up. Halak wasn't so fortunate shortly after that when Czech captain Patrik Elias redirected Martin Havlat's shot from a few feet inside the blue line past the goalie at 9:02 of the first.
Right about then, Slovakia was experiencing a flashback to 2006. Then, Slovakia was the surprise of the Turin Games, blowing through its pool with a 5-0 record before stumbling in the quarterfinals against the Czechs, the rivals against whom they most hate to lose.
Slovakia reunited the unit of Marian Hossa, Marian Gaborik and Pavol Demitra from those Olympics, only four days after Demitra found himself on the Vancouver Canucks' fourth line. Gaborik missed two games and most of a third for the New York Rangers before the Olympic break with a deep gash in his right thigh that occurred in practice, and Hossa played despite a recent concussion.
The Slovaks' top line didn't take long to produce, either, with Gaborik beating Vokoun to the stick side with a wrist shot that knuckleballed past the Czech goalie 47 seconds into the second period off Hossa's pass from down low.
Slovakia had a chance to take the lead slightly more than two minutes later, but Vokoun turned aside Hossa and Gaborik during a power play.