Going for Gold

As the Swedish and Canadian women's teams get ready to do battle for the gold medal at 2:30pm ET on Monday, I'm going to make my prediction: a 4-2 win for Canada. Yes, Canada defeated the Swedes 8-1 in the preliminaries, but they didn't have to face goalie Kim Martin, who only allowed two goals against a skilled American team. She did, however, catch a few breaks, as the U.S. had several open-net opportunities in the semi-final game, and failed to cash in; the Canadian women are better on offence, and should be able to take advantage of those kinds of opportunities. At the other end of the ice, Sweden should get more chances than they did the last time around, as fewer goals against will lead to more opportunities to clear the puck out of danger, and likely to a few more scoring chances.

We'll find out for sure when the puck drops in 20 hours.