Olympic Ice Hockey

The Canadian women's hockey team reaffirmed its dominance in Thursday's gold-medal game, defeating the USA 3-2 in overtime and handing their archrival another crushing loss on the Winter Olympics stage.

Canada looked as though it was going to let the Americans get revenge from the previous Olympics' final, but stormed back from a two-goal deficit in the final 3:26 of regulation at Sochi, Russia's Bolshoy Ice Dome. Then it only seemed fitting that Marie-Philip Poulin finished it off in the extra period on the power play.

As intense as this so-called "Border War" is between the two teams, it has always seemed like the USA has been at a disadvantage, as if they're playing with one less player in the biggest moment.

In the 2010 Vancouver Games, the Canadians had the benefit of home ice and a massive following to cheer them on. That only adds to the U.S. disappointment, which was compounded before Poulin's equalizer with 55 seconds in regulation.

ESPN's Julie Foudy recalled how Poulin scored the winner in 2010 to defeat the Americans:

Adding to the heartbreak was the USA's Kelli Stack, who had a chance to clinch the game for the Americans, firing a shot almost the entire length of the ice just before Poulin scored. Goalie Shannon Szabados was pulled for an extra attacker, and the puck bounced off the post, giving the Canadians new life.

The Chicago Sun-Times captured how close Stack's shot was to going in and giving the USA the likely clinching goal:

Stack discussed the heartbreak afterward, per Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch:

When I first let it go I thought maybe it had a chance. As it crossed the blue line, I thought, "It’s going to hit the post." At the time, we were still up a goal. I was thinking that would have been nice if it went in. An inch to the right…I thought, it’s not that big a deal. We were still up a goal. But it would have given us a bigger cushion. After they tied it up, I thought to myself: I did that once before in college, and it’s the worst feeling in the world.

Bleacher Report's Dan Levy seemed to think justice was served, since an official got in the way and caused Canada to lose possession in the first place:

But at the same time, it was a cruel break for an American team that fought so hard, only to see fate turn against them yet again.

That empty net seemed to tease what could have been for the USA. Poulin's prowess was an ominous, strangely coincidental rerun of the horror film that happened before.

Stack's shot toward a defenseless net could have made all the four years of hard work and training worthwhile. The buildup for this revenge narrative was incredible, especially when Canada beat the U.S. 3-2 during the preliminary round, further fueling the fire.

Entering these Winter Olympics, the Americans had defeated Canada four times in a row in international competition before losing the first matchup. When it mattered most, the U.S. couldn't muster quite enough fortitude to pull it out.

Canada's win at that stage took a three-goal flurry in the third period to rally from a 1-0 deficit after two periods. Thursday's comeback was far more impressive and dramatic—all the while proving that the Canadians could rise to the occasion on the big stage, as the Americans again relented.

These two countries seem extremely close in women's ice hockey in terms of talent and quality, but the U.S. must feel miles behind since Canada has come up with the gold yet again. Now another four years wait before the Americans can prove themselves again—another attempt to derail the four-time defending gold medalists.

Although the USA shouldn't feel down about its extraordinary effort, Thursday's game was yet another example of Canada's perpetual reign atop the sport.

It's tough for an American to get angry at a Canadian, much less feel full-blown contempt. But that will change on Friday, when the U.S. hockey team takes the ice against our neighbors to the north in an Olympic semifinal that's certain to feel like a gold-medal game.

Most days, Canada seems as benign as a seldom-seen first cousin whose family lives somewhere north of Buffalo and cheerfully begs you to come ice fishing every winter. But on Friday, the mere sight of Canadians on skates will make American blood boil with memories of 2010.

That's when Canada, playing at home in Vancouver, won a desperate tug-of-war for the gold in overtime on a Sidney Crosby goal.

What made the outcome so painful for Americans was that the gritty U.S. squad had battled back from a 2-0 deficit and seemed fated to deliver the nation's best Olympic hockey moment since 1980's Miracle on Ice.

Instead, Canada was just a tad better in a riveting game that matched two fast-paced and physical teams that forechecked at every opportunity. It was the kind of game that made even non-hockey fans sit and stare.

But when Crosby's goal found the net, Sid the Kid might as well have been Jack the Ripper to most Americans.

“There’s a lot of Canadians in our league so we want a better outcome than Vancouver,” U.S. forward Max Pacioretty said (via Eric Matuszewski of Bloomberg.com). “No matter what, someone is going to hear about it for the next four years.”

For the U.S., avenging the 2010 defeat—especially after beating Canada, 5-3, in Vancouver's preliminary rounds—also is a final step toward saying the American game is as good as the one that was built by Canadian superstars, from Maurice Richard and Gordie Howe, to Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. 

"It's a team that you want to be able to beat to say that you played through the best," U.S. forward Patrick Kane said, according to The Associated Press' Greg Beacham (via ABCNews.com). "You've got to respect them, but at the same time, we have a chance to prove we're in the same sentence with Canada."

Another nagging source of frustration for the U.S. is that, for the last two decades, American teams have owned the ultimate symbol of hockey success, the Stanley Cup. The last Canadian team to take possession was the Montreal Canadiens, way back in 1993.

But Canadians will be quick to tell you that Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago and all the other U.S. teams that have won during that stretch couldn't have done it without manpower culled from their provinces.

Winning at Vancouver would have been fitting payback for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, when Canada ruined the American quest to reign on home ice.

Time hasn't healed those wounds and they only deepened Thursday in Sochi, when the U.S. women suffered a finals loss to Canada that was so heartbreaking it will make the flight home seem longer than a trip to Mars.

Up 2-0 and ready to shed tears while "The Star Spangled Banner" played, the U.S. women instead were ambushed in the final 3:26 of regulation by a pair of Canadian goals and dragged into overtime. There, the Canadian women prevailed against the U.S., just as they also did in the 2002 and 2010 Olympic finals.

Give the women of both nations credit for throwing more logs on the fire of this already white-hot rivalry. As U.S. forward Meghan Duggan said before the final, anytime these two teams play, "there's blood in the water." (via Sharon Terlep of The Wall Street Journal.)

For the Canadian women, another bit of permanent bulletin-board material stems from 2002, when there was a rumor that the American women were using the Canadian flag as a doormat in their locker room.

U.S. captain Cammi Granato denied that was the case, but Canadian MVP Hayley Wickenheiser took it to be truth, and after the gold-medal game said, “The Americans had our flag on the floor in their dressing room, and now I want to know if they want us to sign it!”

It wasn't the first time Canadians were angered by U.S. treatment of their flag at a sports venue.

Before Game 2 of the 1992 World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Atlanta Braves, a Marine Corps color guard in Atlanta marched out with the Canadian flag hanging upside down. It obviously wasn't intentional, but Canadians cried foul.

If such incidents make Canadians feel they get second-class treatment from the U.S., you can't blame them for wanting to vent that frustration via the fitting avenue of hockey mayhem.

We tend to give Canada credit for Celine Dion, cool-looking Mounties and strong beer, and not much else. Most of us don't know Ottawa is the capital of Canada, and we don't think twice about the spelling of Grey Cup, if indeed we think of the Canadian Football League at all.

Accordingly, Canadians no doubt have derived limitless joy from maintaining a stranglehold on supremacy in their national sport. And doing so at America's expense has to be much more satisfying than clinching the gold against any other nation. It would be tough for Canadians in Toronto or Montreal to inflict bragging rights on Russia or Sweden, but there's always an American handy when they want to rub it in.

Now, the Sochi stage is set for another memorable showdown. With a noon ET start, plenty of people will be watching online at work. American optimism should be fueled by the U.S. having the highest-scoring offense in Sochi, and also by seeing Canada struggle to get past Latvia in a 2-1 quarterfinal.

Meantime, I'm totally behind a suggestion that's been trending on Twitter for how to ramp up the intensity of this game even more:

Loser has to keep Justin Bieber.

Tom Weir has covered eight Winter Olympics as a columnist and reporter for USA Today. You can follow him on Twitter at @TomWeirSports.

Anyone fortunate enough to catch even part of Canada's 3-2 overtime win vs. the United States in the women's hockey gold-medal game at the Sochi Olympics would have to agree that it was an epic moment in sports.

But can it have any kind of lasting impact in a sport that overall lacks competitive teams and generally has to wait four years in between the only rivalry game that catches the attention of anyone outside the small circle of devoted women's hockey fans (i.e. mostly relatives of those playing in the games)?

Sadly, the realistic answer to that question is probably not.

But here's to hoping that maybe it will.

What women's hockey really needs to pray for is that lots of little girls and their parents watched Canada's remarkable come-from-behind win all over the world and that now the little girls are begging said parents for a pair of skates, a hockey stick and directions to the local ice rink.

That even goes for in America, where most girls who start out with a love for playing hockey as a youth move on to other interests by the time they reach their teens.

Former women's collegiate player Maura Grogan wrote on ESPN.com recently of her first-hand experiences of attempting to switch from figure skating to ice hockey as a youth, illustrating the far-reaching impact women playing hockey in the Olympics can have:

I finally had the chance to play ice hockey in 1978 when Yale University, where I was a student, created a women's ice hockey team. I loved the sport. In 1990 I took to the ice again when I as one of the only women in an adult league. By the time I hung up my skates in 2003, there were all-women tournaments across the country and today, 85 colleges have NCAA women's ice hockey teams.

The growth in women's participation that I saw firsthand is a direct result of women' ice hockey becoming an Olympic sport in 1998, part of the International Olympic Committee's efforts to promote women's participation in the Olympics.

Grogan went on to point out that in 1990, the year of the first International Ice Hockey Federation Women's World Championships, there were only 6,336 registered female hockey players in the U.S. Today, the IIHF says 65,700 participate in the U.S. and another 87,230 are registered players in Canada, according to ESPN.com.

Yes, this was a bone-jarring, gut-wrenching, hard-to-take defeat for the American women, who seemed to have the gold medal securely in their hands until they gave up a pair of goals over a 3 1/2-minute stretch—including the one that tied the score with just 54.6 seconds left—to see a 2-0 lead disappear in the third period on Thursday.

But over time, even those rooting for America who were devastated by the defeat should be able to see the value of the game and the sport's rightful place in the Winter Olympics lineup.

That, in itself, will not be enough to matter if other countries don't soon start catching up more rapidly with Canada and the United States in the international rink.

It would be cool to say that the sport already has come a long way since the morning of the gold-medal game between these same two countries back at Vancouver in 2010, when then-International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge surprised reporters by suggesting the sport was treading on very thin Olympic ice.

But it wouldn't necessarily be true.

Rogge's message that day, according to USA Hockey Magazine, was blunt: Improve the overall competitiveness of the game throughout the Olympic field, or start worrying about it soon going the way of women's softball as far as an official Olympic sport.

That was four years ago, of course. And Rogge was replaced as acting president of the IOC by Thomas Bach last year. 

No way the IOC is seriously considering tossing women's hockey from the menu in the immediate wake of Thursday's thrilling contest. But make no mistake. If Thursday's game doesn't have a resounding ripple effect that reaches outside of the borders of Canada—into the United States and even well beyond—the women's game could be right back in the IOC's crosshairs again four years from now.

Even the bronze-medal game was entertaining in Sochi, or at least the score indicates it was, as Sweden came from down 3-0 in the final period to defeat Switzerland, 4-3. Not too many folks invested the time to watch that one.

What the sport needs is to expand beyond its current Canada-U.S. domination and have some other countries rise up to challenge those major programs. The U.S. beat Sweden in the semifinals this Olympics by the score of 6-1, and it could have been worse.

But in 2010, Team USA beat Sweden 9-1. So maybe this is progress.

For a sport whose mightiest professional presence in North America (where it is most popular) is mired in obscurity in the five-team Canadian Women's Hockey League, more rapid progress is required. The CWHL, by the way, currently consists of four teams located in Canada (two in Ontario, one in Quebec, one in Alberta) and only one south of the Canadian border in Boston.

What's sad is that for a few brief hours in Sochi on Thursday, the Canada-U.S. women's hockey rivalry packed every bit as much emotional punch as the men's semi-final between the same two countries will when it is played this Friday. But when the winners and losers of the men's game go home, they'll have other big games to play over the next four years in the National Hockey League or elsewhere.

Heck, some of them arguably will play bigger games over the next four months.

The women won't go into hiding for the next four years. But in a few weeks after the buzz of this game wears off, it unfortunately is likely to sure seem like it to most of us.

It’s almost cliche to say sports are games of inches, but it truly was in the women’s hockey gold medal game between the United States and Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

With just more than one minute separating the Americans from the Olympic title that has eluded them for 16 years, forward Kelli Stack cleared the puck down the ice, only to watch it clank off the post of an empty net.

Had it found the back of the goal, it would have given the United States a nearly insurmountable 3-1 lead. Instead, the Canadians tied the score seconds later and eventually prevailed in overtime.

Canada had to overcome a 2-0 deficit in the final 3:26 just to get to the extra period, where Marie-Philip Poulin finished the game with a 4-on-3 power-play goal.

U.S. winger Hilary Knight discussed the heartbreak of coming so close to the gold, via Kevin Allen of the USA Today:

When you let other factors come in, it can bounce either way. It's heartbreaking. You go four years and you think you have the game in the bag, but something happens. It's unfortunate. But this group has represented our country at an outstanding level. So I can't be too heartbroken about it.

At least the Americans can take solace in the fact that Ellen DeGeneres has their back:

Stack, who nearly put the game away before overtime, was just as shocked as many fans were (via Allen):

We were just so focused on doing our job and not letting what happened happen. And I don't know how it happened. I'm shocked…Leading up to the game, we talked a lot about how we felt this team was different. We were more prepared and focused. We thought a lot about that 1998.

The last time the United States won a women’s hockey gold medal at the Olympics was 1998, with Canada taking it in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014.

While the result was certainly disappointing from an American perspective, it did prove that hockey is the most exciting sport at the Winter Olympics.

The energy in the crowd was unparalleled by anything else we have seen in Sochi, with dueling chants of “Canada, Canada” and “U-S-A, U-S-A” echoing throughout the building.

What’s more, there are no subjective scoring systems in hockey that are difficult to understand, even more difficult to explain, often inspire conspiracy theories and leave audiences at home feeling confused about the outcome.

Throw in the fact that there is no commercial break for entire periods, and Olympic hockey was designed to keep audiences glued to their screens. Spoilers aren’t an issue because the television broadcasts have been live throughout the majority of the Olympics, unlike many of the major events that take place hours before NBC’s prime-time broadcast.

What’s more, we get to do it all over again Friday on the men’s side, as the United States and Canada square off in a semifinal showdown.

There will be star power all over the ice, as players put it all on the line in the middle of a grueling NHL schedule for national pride and the chance to bring home a gold medal to their country.

Looking ahead in the women’s game, it is clear Canada and the United States have separated themselves from the rest of the field. However, the Canadians appear to have the mental edge necessary to finish the job in the final moments on the biggest stage after capturing the past four gold medals.

The Americans are in desperate need of a different result against Canada. 

Heartbreak like this can stick with a team though, which may help fuel the Red, White and Blue on the road to the 2018 Winter Games.

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The United States and Canada are preparing for a compelling semifinal in the men's Olympics hockey tournament, and there are a few players who enter the contest on hot streaks in Sochi. 

Neither team has sampled the bitter taste of losing to this point in the proceedings.

The winner will advance to the gold-medal game against the winning team from the Sweden-versus-Finland semifinals game, while the loser will be relegated to the bronze-medal game. 

Canada is the defending gold-medal winner from the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, when it defeated this same U.S. team 3-2 in overtime. The two nations have been on a collision course for this rematch since the start of the tournament, and the upcoming game should live up to the hype. 

Here's a look at when and where you can catch the game, followed by a closer look at the hottest players from both teams entering the contest. 

When: Friday, Feb. 21, at 12 p.m. ET

Where: Bolshoy Ice Dome, Sochi, Russia

Watch: NBC

Live Stream: NBC Olympics Live Extra

Hottest Players 

USA: Phil Kessel, Forward

The Americans have been on a scoring rampage since the start of these Games, and forward Phil Kessel has led the charge. Scoring five goals and adding another three assists, which accounts for 40 percent of America's offensive production of 20 goals. 

Kessel plays for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL, and his teammates and coaches aren't surprised by his dominance on the big stage. 

“Phil has definitely taken strides here," head coach Randy Carlyle said, via Michael Traikos of the National Post. "He’s grown as a player, he isn’t a one-dimensional player as some described him previously.”

He'll need to continue putting on a show to ensure Canada doesn't continue pulling a big-brother act during Olympic competition on Friday. 

Canada: Drew Doughty, Defender

Defenders aren't usually known as primary goal-scorers, but Drew Doughty has been just that for Canada during the 2014 Winter Games. 

He has scored four goals thus far to lead all players on Canada's roster, adding another two assists for good measure. 

TSN analyst Ray Ferraro has been stunned that much of Canada's offensive production has come by way of its two defenders, Doughty and Shea Weber:

It was Doughty who was responsible for getting past Finland in overtime during qualifiers, too. He's been absolutely clutch for the Canadians, and the team wouldn't be in a position to repeat this year without him. 

USA: Jonathan Quick, Goalie

While Team USA's potent offense has been the biggest story of the tournament, it would be foolish to discount the strong goaltending being displayed by L.A. Kings goalie Jonathan Quick. 

In four games, Quick has allowed just five goals while stopping 72 shots—a save percentage of 93.51, which is absolutely stellar. 

Therefore, it was not at all surprising when USA Hockey announced Quick as the starter for the semifinal matchup against Canada:

Like he's done throughout the tournament and during his Stanley Cup run with the Kings, Quick's ability to play at his best in big games has served him and Team USA well thus far. One more excellent performance will ensure the Americans have a shot at winning gold in 2014. 

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Down two goals with less than four minutes remaining in the 2014 women's Olympic hockey gold-medal game, Canada rallied to stun Team USA 3-2 in overtime.

As it is in every final, only one team could walk away happy, but this was a particularly bitter pill to swallow for the Americans, who lost to Canada in the gold-medal game for the second Olympics in a row.

Marie-Philip Poulin was the woman of the hour for Canada, scoring the game-tying and game-winning goals to lead her team to victory, just as she did in Vancouver four years ago. 

“I don’t know what to say, it’s so surreal and a dream come true again,” she said, as relayed by the Canadian Press, via Canada.com.

Here's a quick look at the box score and final result, followed by a closer examination of how the game went down at the Bolshoy Ice Dome in Sochi.

Team	1st Period	2nd Period	3rd Period	OT	Total
United States	0	1	1	0	2
Canada	0	0	2	1	3

Period No. 1 featured plenty of action but nothing on the scoreboard, as the goalies for both teams put on a fine display.

Canada's Shannon Szabados played spectacularly, stopping 11 American shots, while American Jessie Vetter stopped nine Canadian shots in their tracks. 

After the scoreless first period, Canada appeared to find a rhythm and controlled the puck for the first half of Period No. 2. A Catherine Ward turnover led to a breakaway goal for Meghan Duggan to put Team USA up 1-0.

Duggan's placement on her goal was exquisite, which American soccer star Julie Foudy compared to a pin-point soccer shot:

The United States took that 1-0 lead into the third period and then quickly added to it when Hilary Knight found Alex Carpenter close to the net, where she tapped it in past Szabados to give Team USA a 2-0 lead heading down the home stretch. 

ESPN Stats & Info pointed out it was Carpenter's team-leading fourth goal of the 2014 Winter Games:

With nothing to lose, Canada came charging back and scored its first goal with under four minutes remaining in the game when Brianne Jenner's shot careened off American Kacey Bellamy and into the net.

The game was still 2-1 with 90 seconds left when Canada went to its empty-net set in order to ramp up its offensive attack. 

The strategy nearly backfired when the U.S. team sent a shot toward the empty net, only to see the puck clang off the left post.

So instead of finishing of the Canadians with a game-sealing goal, the Americans helplessly watched Poulin stick a dagger in their hearts with less than a minute remaining, tying the game with her first goal.

As Fox Sports Live pointed out, hockey, like many sports, is a game of inches:

Overtime belonged to the Canadians.

Thanks to a couple of penalties, Canada took advantage of a four-on-three power play when Laura Fortino found Poulin for the game-winner, giving Canada the gold medal for the second consecutive Olympic Games. 

After finishing in second place behind Canada twice in a row, the Americans clearly still have some work to do for the 2018 Winter Games. 

The talent to win gold is there for Team USA, but thus far, the squad hasn't been able to get past the mental barrier it takes to accomplish the feat. 

These two teams are developing quite a competitive rivalry, which is great for fans from both nations. However, it would be nice to see a few other nations with legitimate shots to win the competition the next time around. 

Updated Medal Count

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With Russia falling in the quarterfinals, the complexion of the 2014 men's Olympic hockey tournament was radically altered. The final four has been decided and the Sochi Games will end with the bronze medalists winning and the silver-medal team losing.

As Russians can tell you, it's all about gold. This is a ranking and analysis of each team's chances to finish on top of the podium based on the current odds.

Ice Hockey Men's Semifinals

When: Friday, Sweden vs. Finland, 7 a.m. ET; United States vs. Canada, noon ET

Where: Bolshoy Ice Dome; Shayba Arena

Watch: NBCSN

Stream: NBCOlympics.com and the Live Extra app

Bronze-Medal Game: Saturday, 10 a.m. ET

Gold-Medal Game: Sunday, 7 a.m. ET

1. United States

The U.S. team proved its mettle by edging Russia in the shootout thanks to T.J. Oshie's arsenal of dekes. In the other three games, the United States outscored opponents 17-4.

Phil Kessel has been irrepressible. He tallied a hat trick against Slovenia and scored his fifth goal at the Sochi Games in the quarterfinal win over the Czech Republic. Defenseman Ryan Suter tallied three assists in that game alone. 

As noted by the Associated Press (h/t ESPN.com), "The U.S. might be peaking at the right time to improve its chances to win Olympic hockey gold for the first time since the 'Miracle on Ice,' in 1980...The Americans shaped their roster with players who skate fast, hit hard, share the puck and score."

Jonathan Quick has been effective in net and may be channeling the kind of play that won him the 2012 Conn Smythe Trophy with the Los Angeles Kings. Canada has struggled to score (see below) and the United States will be golden if the scoring continues. 

Odds of winning gold: 2-1

2. Canada

With the Canadian women's team winning gold behind a stirring comeback against the United States, the men should draw some inspiration and competitive drive from that. And they really need the boost.

Canada barely shuffled by Latvia 2-1 to avoid a ignominious defeat of Russian proportions. Canada's offense has been lacking and prodigious scorer Sidney Crosby has just two assists and zero goals in the tournament so far.

According to USA Today's Paul Myerberg, head coach Mike Babcock addressed the stark contrast between Team Canada's current offense and that of the Americans: 

The puck just seems to be going in the net for them. I watched some of their action and they seem to be scoring. And we haven't yet. We feel we have quality players who have got quality opportunities, real good looks, and we haven't scored.

The team has enough talent to find its scoring at the right time and reel off a pair of wins to claim gold, but to paraphrase Yogi Berra, it gets late early in knockout-elimination play. The Americans have been clicking on offense and Canada needed overtime to get past Finland in the group stage. 

Odds of winning gold: 2-1 

3. Sweden

A simple win over Finland would guarantee the Swedes at least the silver medal, though that's easier said than done. Goalie Henrik Lundqvist gives them a puncher's chance even against the best in the world, and he's 4-0 so far in Sochi.

Sweden smoked Slovenia like a piece of haddock with a 5-0 shutout in the quarterfinal. Carl Hagelin added a pair of goals as the Swedes piled on in the third period.

Finland will prove to be a very tough test, but Sweden is a very dangerous dark-horse candidate for gold. 

Odds of winning gold: 13-5

4. Finland

Home-ice advantage can be a powerful thing, as the 2010 Canadian team from the Vancouver Olympics can tell you. Finland doesn't care about that. 

The Finns were merciless in dispatching Russia from the quarterfinal, breaking the hearts of millions in the host nation and seemingly also the bear mascot as well. Teemu Selanne is 43 years old, yet he netted the eventual game-winner late in the first period to put Finland ahead.

Tuukka Rask allowed an early goal to Ilya Kovalchuk, but shut the Russians down after that and finished with 37 saves in the 3-1 win. The stingy Finns have yielded only three goals in regulation over the last three games.

Hot goalies can deliver Olympic gold, and Rask has been percolating in net. 

Odds of winning gold: 19-4

Betting information courtesy of OddsChecker.com's 888Sport listings.

As far as injuries go, the 2014 Sochi Olympics have not been kind to NHL players.

Henrik Zetterberg, Mats Zuccarello, Tomas Kopecky, Aleksander Barkov and John Tavares have seen injuries bring their tournaments to an end, with Tavares' knee injury Wednesday ending his NHL season with the New York Islanders.

The NHL has responded tepidly at best when asked about sending its players to the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, citing concern over potential injuries, among other things. So it was no surprise when commissioner Gary Bettman hinted the big ice in Sochi could be a problem.

In an interview with Al Michaels that is available at NBCOlympics.com, Bettman had this to say about the injuries to NHL players at the Olympics, probably before Tavares could pull himself from the MRI machine:

There have been some people who have advocated that it’s a little safer. I don’t buy that either. In Vancouver — which, by the way, most people say has been the best hockey tournament there’s been in the Olympics — that was played on NHL ice, and our injury factors seemed to have been a lot less than they are here [in Sochi].

Whether it's a negotiating tactic to extract more concessions from the IOC or Bettman truly believes playing on big ice at the Olympics makes players more susceptible to injury, it's about as asinine as it gets. NHL players made it through Vancouver mostly unscathed, sure, but it's because of the ice size?

It's a good thing no one ever gets hurt in the NHL.

The Olympic break for the NHL runs from Feb. 9-24 this season. The last time the NHL played an 82-game season in 2011-12, there were 14 current Olympians who missed at least one game during that window.

Some of the more notable absences included:

• Jonathan Toews of the Blackhawks played his final game of the regular season on Feb. 19 because of a concussion. Four days later, he was the driver in a one-car accident. A hockey player can suffer an injury anywhere, but with bicycles being the primary mode of transportation at the Olympics, he is probably safe in that regard over the rest of the week.

• Pavel Datsyuk also departed the Red Wings lineup Feb. 19, as he had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee and didn't return until March 17.

• Alex Ovechkin of the Capitals missed one game with a lower-body injury.

• Niklas Hjalmarsson of the Blackhawks missed seven games with a concussion he suffered on Feb. 10.

• Jamie Benn suffered a leg laceration on Feb. 18 that cost him six games with the Stars.

That doesn't include Jimmy Howard of the Red Wings or Matt Duchene of the Avalanche, who were befallen by injuries before the Olympic break window but were forced to miss time during that stretch. 

Other current Olympians who missed at least a game during that time: Brooks Orpik, Alexander Steen, Dustin Brown, Jakub Voracek, Martin Hanzal and Tomas Plekanec.

Sidney Crosby was lost for the season prior to Feb. 9 with a concussion, so an Olympic shutdown wouldn't have mattered to his season.

This isn't to mention non-Olympians like Sheldon Souray and Jared Boll who were hurt during that time period.

And oh by the way, while about 150 players are participating in the Olympics, about another 500 are resting and recuperating from minor nicks and scrapes they otherwise would be playing through.

In a way, an Olympic injury can be better than one suffered during the NHL season.

In Zetterberg's case, he was dealing with back issues before the Olympics, so it's not as though a hit from an overeager Latvian caused the damage. Further to that point, by withdrawing early in the tournament, he has two weeks to heal without missing an NHL game.

If the NHL gets its way, there will be a World Cup of hockey played during the offseason in North America, which, just like the Olympics, will feature the best players in the world.

Are injuries suffered then more palatable to owners who have millions of dollars invested in their top players? Would Islanders owner Charles Wang shrug off a major knee injury to one of the game's best players if he suffers it in August instead of February?

In the case of Tavares, his injury comes at the most fortunate of times. The Islanders' season is over, and he is expected to be ready for the start of the 2014-15 season.

If Tavares had shredded his knee in a summer tournament, it's somehow better for everyone because the event is under the NHL's umbrella and thus makes the league money, unlike the Olympics, even though he'd miss half of the 2014-15 season?

Man, it's almost as if injuries are wildly unpredictable and can hurt teams in different ways depending on when they occur and their severity.

The NHL should just come out and say, "We don't think sending our players to the Olympics is worth it financially. That's it. The injuries, the start times of games on the other side of the world, all that is a smoke screen to distract from the point that we feel we deserve a bigger slice of the Olympic pie."

Which is fine. Perhaps the NHL deserves more.

But pinning the reason for skipping South Korea on injuries in Sochi is silly and somewhat embarrassing.

Dave Lozo covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @DaveLozo.