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Russia battles Belarus to 6-4 victory
By Jody Genessy
Deseret News sports writer
WEST VALLEY CITY — Russian goalie Nikolai Khabibulin spent part of last summer training with the Belarus national team.
Memo to the Belarus hockey financial department: Don't send the Russians the bill for Khabibulin's participation. Belarus received its retribution Friday at the E Center — four goals against one of the NHL's hottest goalies.
"Everything he owes Belarus for the summer camp," said Russian coach Slava Fetisov, "he paid them today."
The Belarussians wish Khabibulin would've stuck around longer and racked up a bigger bill — they needed a few more goals. Despite Belarus' unexpected scoring success, Russia earned a 6-4 victory in the Olympic final-round opener.
"It's hard to be satisfied with my performance," said Khabibulin, who made 29 of 33 saves. "At the end of the day we got the win and that's all that matters."
Six Russians — Sergei Samsonov, Alexei Zhamnov, Ilia Kovalchuk, Alexei Yashin, Boris Mironov and Sergei Fedorov — scored to bail Khabibulin out.
Russia stormed to a 4-1 lead and appeared on the verge of a blowout. But Belarus, undefeated in the preliminaries, battled back to 4-3 in the second period on goals by Oleg Khmyl and Ruslan Salei, the country's only NHL player.
Mironov and Fedorov scored early in the third to ice Russia's victory.
Next for Russia: an enticing "Miracle on Ice" reunion game with the United States tonight at 9:30 in the E Center.
"It's going to be a tough game with a big crowd and a lot of Americans cheering for them," Khabibulin said. "I don't think (today's) game has anything to do with (1980)."
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February 16, 2002
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