2010 Olympic Men's Ice Hockey Betting Previews

The marquee event of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games is underway! Yes, the men’s hockey event kicked off in style on Tuesday as Team USA — led by Anaheim Ducks sensation Bobby Ryan (pictured right) — dispatched of Switzerland 3-1 in preliminary round play.

Over at the Sports Interaction sportsbook, there’s a myriad of Olympic men’s hockey betting options available, so let’s run through a few now:

TONIGHT: Russia (1.02) vs. Latvia (11.00)

Arguably the biggest mistmatch of the opening day, as the powerhouse Russian squad takes on a Latvian team with just two NHL players on its roster. Still, many will remember back to the Torino games of 2006, when Latvia stunned the United States in the opening round, scoring a 3-3 draw.

If Lativa has any hope of pulling an upset against Russia, they’ll need to somehow shut down the top line of Alexander Semin, Pavel Datsyuk and Alexander Ovechkin. Umm…Good luck with that.

Wednesday: Finland (1.07) vs. Belarus (7.00)

Belarus makes its return to the Olympics for the first time since 2002, and they don’t get an easy opening assignment, taking on the defending silver medalists. Finland has one of the deepest, most balanced teams in the tournament and have outstanding goaltending options in Calgary’s Miikka Kiprusoff or Minnesota’s Nicklas Backstrom.

Much like the Russia-Latvia affair above, many don’t expect this one to be close. Belarus’ netminding is a concern (Andrei Mezin is a legend domestically, but has never consistently played against the type of talent Finland has) and the team has little to no firepower whatsoever up front.  The loss of Montreal’s Andrei Kostitsyn (knee), one of few NHLers team Belarus had,  really hurts.

Wednesday: Sweden (1.04) vs. Germany (9.00)

Sweden, the defending gold medalists, take on an interesting German team that isn’t deep, but does have some legit NHL talent. Simply put, Germany can put out a full unit of top-caliber talent: goalie Thomas Greiss (San jose Sharks), defencemen Christian Ehrhoff (Vancouver Canucks) and Dennis Seidenberg (Florida Panthers) and forwards Marcel God (Nashville Predators), Jochen Hecht (Buffalo Sabres) and Marco Sturm (Boston Bruins).

But even with this core, Germany will be hard-pressed to defeat Sweden. The Swedes are deep from the net outward, and were recently bolstered by the return of Detroit’s Johan Franzen. Franzen is a highly-skilled goalscorer that rebounded from a torn ACL just to play in this tournament — ironically, he’ll be replacing Detroit teammate and fellow Swede Tomas Holmstrom at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

If you’d like to check out more Olympic hockey betting and other Winter Olympic props, head on over to the Sports Interaction online sportsbook today!