Watched the Russia-Swiss game tonight, and it was quite good. The Swiss are clearly better this year, took 2-0, and 3-1 leads, but the Russians proved to strong, winning 7-4. Most interesting play was when Swiss guy rushed in at the blue line, was clearly tripped by a Russian D, kept going to the net, and was hacked down again by the same guy. The refs talked it over, and called 2 separate penalty shots. Both were missed. I wonder if they scored on the first whether the second would have occurred.
Thus far, I think we can say:
Contenders: Canada, Sweden, USA, probably Russia
Difficult outs: Switzerland, Finland
Quarterfinal pretenders: Czechs, Slovaks
Actually, the Finns probably fit in the first category.