Julio Cortez/AP
Team USA forward T.J. Oshie scores the winning goal against Russia goaltender Sergei Bobrovski in the overtime shootout to power the Americans to a 3-2 preliminary round win Saturday.
SOCHI, Russia - You don't need a Cold War to have high hockey drama. You don't need impossible odds, men against boys or an opponent shrouded in red mystique.
All you need, it turns out, is two highly skilled and swift teams racing up and down the Olympic ice for 65 pulsating minutes, then slugging it out through an eight-round shootout, and have it all playing out in a raucous pit of Russian patriotism called the Bolshoy Ice Dome.
The Olympic agate will tell you the U.S. scored a shootout victory over Russia, 3-2, in a preliminary round game Saturday night. It will tell you nothing about the "Rus-sia, Rus-sia" chants that rocked the building at the edge of the Black Sea, the ubiquitous Russian flags in the arena or an unrelenting energy befitting the first Olympic game between the two nations on Russian ice.
And it can't possibly do justice to the heroics of U.S. forward T.J. Oshie, who came here via the St. Louis Blues, and buried four shootout goals in six attempts, including the game-winner, past Russian and Columbus Blue Jacket goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky - not quite the ending that Russian hockey's No. 1 fan, Vladimir Putin, who was in the house, had in mind.
"You're not going to see something like that ever again," said U.S. defenseman Cam Fowler, who scored the first U.S. goal.Said U.S. coach Dan Bylsma: "The game pretty much had everything in it in an unbelievable setting and atmosphere."
The 28-year-old Oshie, who is on the team in large measure because of his shootout prowess - he is 7-for-10 in the NHL this season, tied for most goals - didn't disagree, but had a more pragmatic concern.
RELATED: BONDY: TEAM USA'S THRILLER GIVES AMERICANS REASON TO CHEER FOR OLYMPICS"I was running out of moves. I was just trying to think of something else I could do," Oshie said.
The U.S. and Russians may well meet again in the medal round, with far more at stake, but for a warmup this was riveting stuff, not least from U.S. goaltender Jonathan Quick, who saved the best of his 29 saves for late in the third and even got a congratulatory tweet from 1980 hero goaltender, Jim Craig.
The action started early, when Blueshirt Ryan Callahan, a physical force all night, got into a heated pushing match with Evgeny Medvedev and wound up with Medvedev's glove in his face. The Russians had the better of a taut, scoreless first period, and took a 1-0 lead when captain Pavel Datsyuk split the U.S. defense and scored the first of his two goals - and the only even-strength score of the game - midway through the second.
Fowler evened it up with 3½ minutes left in the second, forward James van Riemsdyk sliding the puck across the crease before it hit Fowler's skate and caromed in, and the Americans seized on a power-play opportunity again with 10½ minutes left in the game, when Patrick Kane threaded a gorgeous, cross ice pass to Joe Pavelski, who buried it.
Datsyuk, a Red Wing in his NHL life, drilled in another at 12:44 of the third, and when Russian defenseman Fyodor Tyutin beat Quick with a drive from the point that ripped just under the crossbar with just under five minutes to play, Bolshoy erupted again.
Except the score was disallowed because the goal was ruled to be off its moorings.
PHOTOS: TEAM USA BEATS RUSSIA IN OLYMPIC HOCKEY THRILLER"I don't know what happened there but it was definitely a goal," said Alex Ovechkin, who had six shots on goal but had several of his best chances snuffed by the ever-sliding Ryan McDonough.
Quick made a superb stop on a high-flying Ilya Kovalchuk in the final minutes and the game moved into a five-minute overtime, and when Bobrovsky stopped Kane on a breakaway, the shootout ensued.
International rules allow coaches to use whoever they want after three players shoot, so Bylsma kept dialing up Oshie, who beat Brobovsky through the pads to get the U.S. up 1-0. Kovalchuk kept the Russians alive by beating Quick on the glove side, and after Datsyuk scored to put the Rusians ahead 2-1, Oshie had to score or it was over. He used the same slow buildup toward goal, then snapped a shot through the five-hole again for 2-2. One more time, after another Kovalchuk score, here came Oshie, deking Broboski to the ice and going up high.
Quick stopped Kovalchuk and finally here came Oshie for the last time, going backhand to forehand, and again finding a space between the pads.
"It's heartbreaking," Brobovsky said.
The drama was over. The bench emptied. The U.S. celebration was on in a suddenly tomb-like Bolshoy. The Americans come back to play Slovenia Sunday in another prelim game. It will be a short rest. T.J. Oshie talked about what an elite team Russia is, and the character the U.S. showed, and the ending.
"Every kid wants to do the shootout," he said. "I guess tonight it paid off for me."
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