Russia Beats North America in Absolute Thriller

In a game that saw the tournament's first lead change, Russia was able to get their tournament back on track with a 4-3 victory over North America on Monday.

If anyone was going to make the Toronto faithful go nuts at the Air Canada Centre, it was going to be Auston Matthews. At the 5:14 mark of the game, Connor McDavid got the puck away from Alex Ovechkin and exited out of his own zone. Then, the young superstar beat out Pavel Datsyuk in the neutral zone, giving him a rush opportunity with Matthews. At the last second, McDavid sent a pass over to the American superstar, who beat out Alexei Emelin to tap it in and raise the roof early in the game.

Despite the uptempo, high action period that North America displayed, Russia still managed to get more shots on net thanks to a 11-9 advantage after 20 minutes. They were put in a tough stand, especially after their poor performance at the 2014 Olympics on home soil. If they lost the game to North America, they'd be out of contention to make the semi-finals by day three of the tournament.

In a one minute span near the middle of the game, North America's effort began to take a hit thanks to the efforts of two Tampa Bay Lightning forwards. At 9:29 of the second, a poor defensive effort by Morgan Rielly and Seth Jones allowed Vladislav Namestnikov, who sat out against Sweden on Sunday, a chance to break through the slot and get a shot on net. His first attempt was no good, but goalie Matt Murray accidentally kicked the puck off his pad an into the net to make it 2-1.

Then, less than a minute later, one of his teammates in Tampa scored for the first lead change of the entire tournament. Nikita Kucherov scored on a takeaway at the hash marks, stealing the puck and spinning before sending low glove on Murray to make it 2-1.

North America was hoping to even the game up, but they would actually give up their third goal against. Three minutes later, Evgeny Kuznetsov got the puck from Artemi Panarin and fought off a defensive effort in front. Just before making his way near the crease, Kuznetzov roofed it over Murray to give Russia three goals in a four minute span.

It continued to get worse. With about four minutes left in the opening period, Murray's night would come to an early end after allowing a weak five-hole goal from Vlad Tarasenko. Tarasenko had a few seconds all alone at the top of the right face off circle, showing a bit of patience before firing one towards the net, perhaps in search of a rebound. Murray would be replaced by John Gibson between the pipes, a desperate attempt to bring North America back into the game.

And it worked. With 2:04 left in the period, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins passed the puck to Morgan Rielly from a goalmouth scramble. Rielly had a bit of time to pick his angle before lazering it over Sergei Bobrovsky, cutting Russia's lead in half heading into the intermission.

It took 3:11 in the third period for North America to bring themselves within one. After Colton Parayko forced a shot on the net, Nugent-Hopkins added to his strong performance by tapping the puck in at the crease, making it 4-3. On the play, Ivan Telegin was injured on a hard shot by Rielly, forcing him to head back to the change room. It was a step in the right direction for North America, but it wasn't enough as an explosive second period by Russia was good enough to hold on to the victory.

Ovechkin, who was visibly upset after having a goal taken away late in Russia's opening game against Sweden, was quick to praise North America.

"A lot of these guys play together in the NHL and we knew that if we gave them their space and their time they were going to use it," Ovechkin said. "The second period, we played how we wanted to play."

Most of the praise following the game was aimed towards Bobrovsky, who finished with 38 saves, with many of the tougher ones coming near the end.

"We knew they had lots of speed," Bobrovsky said. "It was a good challenge for us."

North American head coach Todd McLellan wasn't completely negative about his team's performance, but knew there was a lot of room for improvement.

"We grew tonight, we learned a lesson," McLellan said. "But we looked slow, and that's not the way we play.

"We looked unsure for the first time in the tournament," he added.

McLellan would not confirm reports of a concussion to defenseman Aaron Ekblad, who missed the game after pre-game decision.

McDavid was among the dejected forwards for North America, who believed they could have dealt with the contest better.

"We just turned it into a track meet. That's not what we needed against them, we kind of opened up," said McDavid. "We let them swing and build speed, and we had way too much of a gap between the forwards and our defense.

"That's not the way to play the Russians, but I thought we did a good job of responding and really making a game of it," McDavid added

Nugent-Hopkins, one of the stronger players in the game, had an upbeat attitude despite the result.

"I think we showed a lot of character tonight," he said. "You can't dwell too much on what could have been, you have to move forward."

With the win, Russia now makes it three teams in Group B with a victory, with Finland having a chance to make it all four against Sweden tomorrow. North America will look to rebound against the Swedes on Wednesday at 3:00 PM, while Russia will try and make their way into the semi-finals with a victory over Finland on Thursday.

Follow me on Twitter, @StevenEllisNHL.

Tweets by @eurohockey