Men's hockey: Team USA advances to gold medal game with 6-1 win over Finland

Ryan Miller was perfect, the offense was on fire and Team USA could not be stopped.  That's how you get to the final round kiddies and that's what it's going to take to win the gold.

It took Ryan Malone only two minutes to put USA up 1-0 and they would not drop the lead for the remainder of the game.  By the end of the first, Zach Parise, Erik Johnson, Patrick Kane, Patrick Kane again and Paul Stastny would all put this one out of reach early as Team USA skated into the first intermission up 6-0 over Finland.  That would do it for US scoring, but did they really need anything more?

Ryan Miller, when challenged, stopped all of the 18 shots faced.  With less than 12 minutes remaining in the game, Boston's Tim Thomas gave Miller a tap on the pads and skated to the cage to take over goaltending duties until the final horn sounded.  Unfortunately not long into his 2010 olympic debut, a Finland power-play shot ricocheted off defenseman Erik Johnson and slipped past to put the score at 6-1.  Thomas ended the game with five saves on six shots. 

If he were a Philly or Washington goaltender I'm sure I'd be riding him a bit more right now.  But if you get a chance to see the game or highlights, you'll clearly see it was beyond his control.

There ya have it.  Team USA is off the gold medal game to face the winner of Canada/Slovakia game, set to go down tonight at 9:30 EST.