US falls, will try to get up tonight

TURIN -- The US hockey team kept up the beat last night, piling up good scoring chances, and in the end used those good chances to chalk up yet another one-goal loss. Russia 5, US 4. You know, close, but Olympus is the land of must wins and five rings, not almosts and horseshoes.

If the United States loses by a goal again tonight, faced against Finland in the playoff round, its gold medal drought officially will be extended to 26 years.

''It's driving everyone a little bit crazy," said coach Peter Laviolette, his challenged-to-score squad wrapping up the qualifying round with a lackluster 1-3-1 record, the only win coming over the sad-sack Kazakhs, the tie against the lowly Latvians. ''It's not frustration. It's more maddening than anything else."

The Yanks, as the No. 4 seed, tonight take on the mighty Finns, who finished atop the `A' pool with a 5-0-0 record, outscoring their opponents by a gaudy 19-2 margin. Teemu Selanne, the Finnish Flash, led the qualifying round with six goals and tied for the overall point total lead (9). The Yanks were led by Scott Gomez, whose 5 points in five games left him in an eight-way tie for 10th place in scoring.

Typically, clubs live or die by the power play in these tournaments. Last night, the Yanks did both, ultimately to their death. After scoring only one goal in each of their previous two losses, they got hot with four goals vs. Russia, and three of those came on the man-advantage. However, they also bollixed two early chances on the power play, leading the Russians to a pair of goals that had the former CCCP in control of a 2-0 lead by 10:41 of the first period.

''Those are mistakes that guys on this team don't normally make," said Rhode Island's Mathieu Schneider, a mainstay at the point for the Yanks. ''It's because we've been pressing for goals, no doubt. We've been playing from behind the whole tournament, and that's no way to win."

The first goal, by Alexander Korolyuk, came at 9:27, five seconds after an Andrei Markov hooking minor. He knocked the puck away from Chris Drury, who was plodding in unfamiliar territory up around the blue line, and then raced in all alone to bury a doorstep forehander on Robert Esche.

Esche, handed the start in part because the Yanks already were locked into the No. 4 spot, most likely will give way to Winthrop, Mass.'s Rick DiPietro in today's game. DiPietro has been the best of the three US goaltenders, including former Bruin John Grahame, who was in net for the tie with the Latvians.

At that 10:41 mark, phenom Evgeni Malkin, a Penguins draft pick, spiked a Darius Kasparaitis feed at the right post. Playing shorthanded, the pair barreled down ice on a two-on-one vs. Schneider after Maxim Sushinsky sparked the breakout with a backhander out of the defensive zone. The Kasparaitis-Malkin finish was a page torn out of the CCCP book. Bang, bang, 2-zip.

''It's tough when you are not winning games," noted US center Craig Conroy. ''[Tonight] is when it all counts. The positive is that we scored some goals, but we gave up the shorthander, and we can't let that happen."

The Yanks connected for their first of three power-play goals when ex-Bruin Brian Rolston vacated his right point, raced down low, and knocked home a 10-footer off a Conroy feed with 1:22 left in the first. But 15:00 into the second, the Russians opened up a 3-1 lead on Markov's strike at even strength. Just 59 seconds before the second break, Brian Gionta jammed home a goal for the States after netminder Maxi Sokolov first turned back two booming long-range slappers.

For once, some of the US chances were more than teasers. The Americans were landing shots, getting bodies around the net, using their nuisance tactics to post goals. They'll have to do the same if they hope to upend the Finns.

Gomez, who assisted on Gionta's strike, knocked home the 3-3 equalizer at 5:00 of the third, again on a power play. But just less than five minutes later, superstar-in-the-making Alexander Ovechkin provided the 4-3 lead, potting a Malkin feed in yet another nice bit of skating poetry. The Yanks knotted it only 43 seconds later with their only even-strength goal of the night, Erik Cole muscling out front, cradling a backhander, and jamming it past Sokolov, who took over for Evgeni Nabokov after the first. It was another hard-work ugly goal for the born-in-the-USAs.

Canadiens star Alexei Kovalev, who lit up the '92 Games at Albertville with his dazzling one-on-one play, canned the closer at 11:52. He raced over the line at right wing, pulled up, and belted a clear-look slapper past the late-to-react Esche. The Flyers goalie should have had it, only adding to the dear diary string of happenings for Laviolette and lads.

The bit of encouragement for Team Liberty & Freedom is that the Finns play a more North American style, straight ahead and physical. Nonetheless, the Scandanavians have turned that north-west mentality into their 5-0 record.

''They're the best team in the tournament," said Gomez. ''We can't afford to make mistakes. It's like we'll be playing in a Game 7 [in the Stanley Cup playoffs]. The team that makes the fewest mistakes, that's the team that usually wins."