Czechs resilient, Russians survive

While Russia has been the talk of the tournament with their dominance and ability to just keep winning games, the team that's shaking out to be the real inspiring story at the World Championships is the Czech Republic. It seems only fair that they'll be the teams battling out for the gold medal on Sunday.

The Czechs found themselves in a game battle with Sweden in today's first semifinal game. While the game itself played out very evenly with both teams opting to put the focus on defense and not making mistakes, it would be Sweden that would take a 2-1 lead into the third period on the strength of goals by Johan Harju and Andreas Engqvist.

The Czechs, who have had their backs against the wall virtually this entire tournament, would find a way to get the equalizer with 8 seconds remaining and with Tomas Vokoun pulled for the extra attacker. A flurry of shots on Swedish netminder Jonas Gustavsson would create a pile of bodies in front of the net while the puck popped out high to defenseman Karel Rachunek who blasted it past Gustavsson to tie the game.

The teams would trade chances through ten minutes of 4-on-4 overtime but the game would hang in the balance. If the Czechs were going to pull the stunner, they were going to have to do it the same way they did it to Finland in the quarterfinals, in the shootout. From there, Tomas Vokoun would do his part stopping two out of three Swedish shooters while Czech skaters Lukas Kaspar and Jan Marek would score against Gustavsson to secure the victory.

For Marek, it makes consecutive games scoring the winner in the shootout and for the Czechs it would provide a somewhat Bad News Bears like comparison for their run to the gold medal game. Going into the tournament, a lot of the talk focused on Jaromir Jagr and about how he was disappointed more of his Czech teammates from the NHL wouldn't come to Germany to compete. Jagr and his "no name" teammates are now just a win away from stunning everyone in this tournament and taking gold. For a team that was points away from being sent to the relegation round, this run is really something else.

As for Russia, they got their biggest scare of the tournament against Germany. The Russians had no one to blame but themselves for it though as Nikolai Kulemin took a boarding major in the first period and was kicked out of the game for it. Russia would go on and take two different other minor penalties while they were killing off the major and allowing Germany time to work 5-on-3.

That's where Predators forward Marcel Goc would find the net and give Germany a 1-0 lead they would try desperately to cling to by clamping down defensively and trying to trap the Russians. While Russia struggled with this through the remainder of the first and half of the second period, Evgeni Malkin would find a way ripping a slap shot past Robert Zepp to tie the game in the second. Malkin has been a sensation since arriving in Germany and would serve to be a great decoy on Pavel Datsyuk's game-winning goal late in the third period as Datsyuk ripped a shot to the short side past Zepp while Malkin waited for a potential pass on the two-on-one break.

For Germany, it's a heartbreaking way to lose but they were very concerned with keeping Russia's offense bothered at all times that their own offense suffered for it. Germany will at least get a chance to take another world power down in the bronze medal game against Sweden.

While I got ahead of myself daydreaming about a potential Russia-Sweden gold medal game, seeing how the Czechs just don't quit at all has re-inspired to get amped up to see them take on Russia for the prize. Russia is looking for the three-peat while the Czechs are hoping to win their first gold medal since 2005 when they beat Canada 3-0.