Canada wins men’s hockey gold, again, with convincing win over Sweden

Let's put it this way: Canada out-shot Norway 38-20 and earned 23 scoring chances to Norway's 4.

Against Sweden in the gold medal game? Shots 36-24 and, per my count, the scoring chances an otherworldly 25-4.

Sure, the Swedes began the game with a bit of bad news: top line centreman Nicklas Backstrom was ill failed a doping test and couldn't dress. Sweden was already without top forwards Henrik Sedin and Henrik Zetterberg due to injury, but Canada tore at the Swedish defenders like a summer wildfire. They tore through everybody, in fact. Short of nervous moments against Finland and Latvia, the Canadian men's hockey team had very little competition on their way to a gold medal, not allowing a goal in the medal round and allowing just three goals in six total games in the Olympic tournament.

The final against Sweden was 3-0. It may as well have been 1-0, as the scoreline went against the United States. Once Canada took a 1-0 lead, they went into shutdown mode, controlling the puck below the Swedish goal line and not conceding the puck. When Sweden had the puck, the Canadians kept them to the outside and it would take a lucky bounce for Sweden to even get a goal.

Here's how the scoring chances broke down by period, via the Copper and Blue definition of a chance, as a clear attempt on net from within the home plate area of the ice:

The Swedish chance in the second period, the powerplay marker, came just 24 seconds into the period, meaning that Canada played the final 39:36 of the game was played completely mistake-free in the Canada zone.

Despite being up 2-0 after the second, Canada ramped up the pressure, and as they did against the Americans, decided to play defence by playing offence. It's not exactly an accepted strategy at the National Hockey League level, yet, as a lot of teams like to collapse in front of their own net when up a goal and try and block shots. Canada simply prevented them, but not allowing Sweden to maintain the puck.

Each player in the chart below is recorded a chance "for" when they're on the ice for a Canadian chance, and a chance "vs." when on the ice for a Sweden opportunity. As you can see, every Canadian wound up in the black:

The Duncan Keith and Shea Weber pairing had a particularly legendary performance, on the ice for 12 and 13 Canadian chances for and none against, respectively.

Really, what kept Sweden in the game was a series of five chances midway through the second on a two-minute extended sequence inside the Swedish end and Canada failed to convert on all of them. Martin St. Louis missed the net during that sequence—as did Rick Nash, Shea Weber and Jeff Carter—and that was all that kept Henrik Lundqvist, who played an excellent game, alive during the second.

There's not much to analyze right now. It's early in the morning, and the country deserves to celebrate a little. I think there's a good argument to put together that this was one of the best hockey teams ever assembled. The team never trailed throughout the entire Olympic tournament and continually out-shot and out-chanced opponents with the lead, never hanging on by a sliver and never conceding. It was clinical, convincing, unconventional, and Canadian, and Canada are world champions once again.