Austria better than Norway, but Canada held large scoring chances advantage in second game of Olympic men’s tournament

Team Canada's offence woke up in the second period of the team's 6-0 win against Austria, improving to 2-0 in the Olympic men's hockey competition and bring its goal differential up to +8. Coach Mike Babcock used the game as a tune-up and another chance to try out some different line combinations, so the focus will be on the early success of Patrick Marleau, Jonathan Toews and Jeff Carter, three players strung together from three different lines against Norway.

Carter scored a natural hat-trick in the second period, and Marleau had the primary assist on each tally. What more, Carter had a team-high five shots on goal and was a game-high +5, which is impressive enough on the boxscore.

However, were you do look less at finishing ability and delve into creating scoring chances a little more, you may be impressed at the game played by the one line Babcock kept together. John Tavares, Jamie Benn and Patrice Bergeron all slightly upped their ice-time in the rout, but were still played the least of any line, despite creating a glut of scoring chances for themselves throughout the game. Tavares had three shots, Benn had four and Bergeron had two and the three had a combined nine attempts for scoring chances. The deeper we get into the tournament, the more I'd like to see out of that line and if they keep up that play it's only a matter of time before one of the three explodes offensively.

Here is the detailed scoring chance recap of the game:

There wasn't a lot of special teams time in the game, but Canada was able to out-chance the Austrian powerplay while shorthanded, which is impressive no matter who the opponent is. Austria had a little bit more bite than the Norwegians did and more time was spent in the Canadian end in the second game than the first—but Roberto Luongo played a very solid game and it helped that the Austrians missed the net on some of their better looks.

Still, through two games, Canada has out-chanced its opposition 55-19, and at this point I'm anxious to see a close contest, or at least one where there's a reasonable chance that the Canadian goaltender is the focal point of a legitimate post-game discussion.

One of the reasons I count scoring chances (using the Copper and Blue definition found here) is that it allows us to look to which line combinations are working on any given day. Every player on the ice for a 5-on-5 scoring chance earns a 'plus', and every player on the ice for a 5-on-5 chance against earns a 'minus'. Here are the totals from the Austria game:

Some thoughts:

• Sidney Crosby is really good in a certain area around the net, about six feet to the goalie's left and a foot or two up from the goal-line. He's tipped in a lot of goals from that spot throughout his career, and Canada's been incorporating that slap pass into the strategy. Duncan Keith and Shea Weber, unsurprisingly, are very adept at finding sticks close to the net and Canada got some good early chances using that particular play, but have yet to score on it thus far.

• If there's a concern about the Crosby line, it's not the lack of scoring, it's the lack of defence. So far in the tournament, opponents have recorded seven chances against Crosby and six against Chris Kunitz, more than any other Canadian forward.

• Carter, as we learned against Austria, is good at scoring from dirty areas. It was why I was a little hesitant on the idea of him playing with Crosby, since Crosby draws a double-team when he's on the ice and needs to play with a shooter who succeeds in finding the soft areas of the ice, rather than one who succeeds in the hard areas since there are fewer hard areas with Crosby out there.

• A player I'd like to see spend some time with Crosby who is deadly in open space? Jamie Benn.

• Jeff Carter's second period hat-trick came in exactly 2:42 of ice-time. He had the lowest ice-time of any player.

• In a second period where Canada held a 11-3 scoring chances advantage at even strength, defenceman Drew Doughty had a minus-1 disadvantage, somehow.

• Rick Nash drew the short straw and played just 10:26, and had the misfortune of being on the ice for two Austrian chances and no Canadian chances, despite recording three shots on goal.

• P.K. Subban was a bit quiet in the offensive end. In Montreal with a lack of scoring forwards, Subban is expected to be a catalyst, but he has to be a little bit more passive when surrounded by so much offensive talent. He's at his best when skating the puck up ice but through two games it seems clear Babcock wants his forwards handling entries into the zone.

• On the Austrian side of the ledger, defenceman Matthias Trattnig was their wizard offensively, taking eight shots on goal and having two of them recorded as scoring chances. The most dangerous combination, however, was Michael Grabner and Michael Raffl, two of the team's three NHLers. Thomas Hundertpfund, who scored against Finland but didn't record a shot against Canada, has the best name of players in the tournament.

One other thing that kept Canada's goal totals to six? Missed nets, especially in the first period. Here's how the teams were able to get chances on goal:

The missed nets include a goal post hit by Grabner late in the first period. While Austrian goalie Bernhard Starkbaum had a rough outing, allowing 4 goals on 18-on net scoring chances (and conceding two point shots that didn't count as chances), his backup Mathias Lange stopped all six. Luongo was the less busy of the two keepers, but stopped his share of pucks in front and really prevented this game from becoming interesting at any point.

Next up is Finland on Sunday. The Finns have scored more goals than any other team in the tournament and are always a tough test in international contests and we'll probably see our first "close" game in terms of shots and puck possession. It's an important game to win, as well. In 2010, you'll recall Canada failed to win its group and ran into Russia in the quarterfinals while the group-winning United States got to play Switzerland.