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Russia makes mistakes, still beats Belarus
By Greg Beacham
AP sports writer
WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah — Sergei Fedorov and teen-age sensation Ilya Kovalchuk each had a goal and an assist as Russia beat Belarus 6-4 Friday in the first match of the final round of Olympic men's hockey.
With the exception of its backup goaltenders, Russia's roster is composed entirely of NHL players. Once the dominant power of Olympic hockey when the Soviet Union existed, Russia is many observers' favorite to win again in Salt Lake City.
Through most of their first game against the weakest team in their group, the Russians clearly showed their superiority — but also made enough mistakes to keep Belarus in it.
Nikolai Khabibulin, perhaps the NHL's hottest goaltender this season, allowed two soft goals in a shaky first Olympic appearance, while the defenders in front of him also struggled.
Belarus is the only remaining team with no NHL forwards in its lineup, but it managed 33 shots — 18 in the second period as Russia got a brief scare.
Russia is grouped with the United States, Finland and Belarus for round-robin play in the first four days of the final round. No team will be eliminated during the round, which determines the seedings for the quarterfinals starting Wednesday.
Sergei Samsonov, skating on a potent line with Fedorov and Kovalchuk, scored the game's first goal just 1:45 in. Russia also used brothers Pavel and Valeri Bure together on a line with Alexei Zhamnov, while Alexei Yashin — who scored in the second period — centered a line with Alexei Kovalev and Andrei Nikolishin.
Russia dominated the flow of play and took nine shots in the first eight minutes, but Belarus evened the score when Igor Kravchuk left the net unguarded after a faceoff, allowing Oleg Antonenko to score.
Zhamnov put the Russians back ahead with a power-play goal late in the period, and 18-year-old Kovalchuk got his first Olympic goal 21 seconds before intermission when his centering pass banked off a defender and into the net.
Belarus, which qualified for the final round by going 2-1 in the preliminaries, got Anaheim's Ruslan Salei — its only current NHL player — back in its lineup. Salei's teammates never made it easy for Russia, and they controlled play for most of the second period after goalie Andrei Mezin stepped in for Sergei Shabanov.
Belarus pulled within 4-3 late in the second period when Khabibulin allowed an innocent wrist shot by Aleksei Kalyuzhny to get past him, but Russia put the game out of reach with goals from Boris Mironov and Fedorov early in the third.
Salei scored the final goal with 1:37 to play when Khabibulin misplayed a shot from the blue line — though it may have been deflected. Oleg Khmyl also scored for Belarus.
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February 15, 2002
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