Russia - Slovakia quick facts

Do you know: 

1. Russia and Slovakia have met three times at the Olympic Games, with Slovakia winning two of three contests. The Slovaks last beat Russia in a memorable 2-1 preliminary round win at the 2010 Vancouver Games. The late Pavol Demitra scored the winning goal in the shootout.
2. Slovakia's sole loss to Russia at the Olympic Winter Games came in overtime of the quarterfinal at the Lillehamer 1994 Olympic Games.
3. Since the 2010 Games, the two teams have met at the IIHF World Championship three times with Russia winning each game, including the gold medal match at the 2012 world championship
4. The Slovak roster features seven players named Tomas. The Russian roster features six players named Alexander.
5. Jan Laco and Semyon Varlamov were announced as startingf goalies

Quote of the game:

Jaroslav Halak (about Slovakia roster): If you look at the roster four years ago we had really good hockey players that were in their prime. We had different players then. We were younger. Everybody's four years older right now and the time is catching up with everybody. It is hard to replace great players, we have no one young coming up, but we have to play with what we have.

Tweets by @eurohockey