Canadiens: Jaroslav Halak and the 2010 Olympic Slovakia Run
On April 26, 2010, Montreal Canadiens goaltender Jaroslav Halak made 53 saves in a 4-1 win over the Washington Capitals. The team would advance in to the next round of the playoffs, battling back from a 3-1 series deficit.
As historic a moment as the performance was, this was not the first run Halak had experienced that year. Two months prior, in Vancouver British Colombia, Team Slovakia fought improbable odds and made the bronze medal game.
Slovakia entered the tournament with the second oldest average roster, just behind the Finnish team. In their group, the Slovaks had two teams who could make a run at the gold medal in Russia and the Czech Republic, and a Latvian team who was—quite frankly—just happy to be there.
Slovakia opened up play with a 3-1 loss against Tomas Plekanec and the Czechs, before upsetting Andrei Markov and the Russians in a 2-1 shootout win. They wrapped up preliminaries with a 6-0 shellacking of Latvia. Through three games, Halak has saved 78 of the 82 shots he faced, good enough for a 0.951 save percentage. It was not enough to lock-up a spot in the quarterfinal, however, and the Slovaks had to make their way through qualification.
The team squeaked by the Norwegian team with a 4-3 win. Slovakia then turned their attention to Sweden in the quarterfinal. Duking it out against King Henrik Lunqvist and the Swedes, Halak stopped 26 of 29 shots, and a fourth goal by Tomas Kopecky sent his team to the semis with a 4-3 win.
The eventual gold medal winners, Team Canada, trounced the Slovaks with a 4-3 win in the semifinal, sending the underdog to take on Finland in a battle for bronze. It should be noted that at the end of the preliminary round, Slovakia placed seventh in the overall table. By making the bronze medal match, they were the sole team from their original group remaining.
On the other side of the ice, Miikka Kirpusoff took the crease for Finland. There were a few factors favouring the Finnish veteran: a nine-year seniority over Halak, resting for two games in the tournament, and/or making half as many saves.
When the final buzzer sounded, Finland celebrated a 5-3 bronze medal victory. After seven games, Halak had recorded a 2.41 goals against average and a 0.911 save percentage through seven games. Oh yeah, and he was just 24-years-old at the time.
It may not have been the finish Slovakia had hoped for, but it was just a taste of what was to come in solid performances from Halak. Flashing forward to April that same year, he secured a 9-9-0 playoff record with a 2.55 goals against and a 0.923 save percentage. He had helped eliminate both the Capitals and a stacked Pittsburgh Penguins team, who had lifted the Stanley Cup a year prior. The Philadelphia Flyers would get the best of the Habs, winning the Eastern Conference final in five games, but it was another improbable run in the year of improbable runs in the thus far nascent career of Halak.
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