USA (w) vs Russia (w): The Russians will not be able to offer decent resistance to the Americans

At the last World Championships, the Americans beat the Russians 6-0. Will Evgeny Bobariko's wards be able to take revenge on the USA now? We predict that the USA national team will again win comfortably!

The USA are one of the two main favourites to win the women's ice hockey competition at the Olympics 2022. They are the reigning champions. These girls reached the final in Pyeongchang without too much trouble, snatching victory from Canada 3-2 in the shootout. At the last World Championship in September 2021, the Americans also reached the main game of the tournament and even led after the first period - 2:0, but have allowed the Canadians first to tie the game, and in overtime conceded a decisive puck - 2:3. At the current Olympic Games, Joel Johnson's wards started with a convincing victory over the Finns - 5:2, and by the equator of the game, they won - 4:0, and then confidently solved the case.

The Russian national team at the Olympic Games in Beijing is one of the contenders for the bronze medals. In South Korea, they had to settle for fourth place, losing in the repechage final to Finland 2-3. At the last World Championships, the Russian team was defeated by Switzerland 2-3. It had seemed that Evgeny Bobariko's charges had even less chance of success at the 2022 Olympics since a number of them tested positive for coronavirus before the tournament. Still, their debut performance was quite good. In the game against the Swiss national team got convincing revenge, having beaten the opponent 5-3, and the main hero of the game was Polina Bulgareva, who scored a hat-trick.

The teams have played 13 head-to-head games in major international tournaments in recent years. The USA national team players celebrated every time victory, and the general difference of pucks on this interval was 118:5. The last time the two teams met was at the World Cup 2021 when the USA won - 6:0.

The North American teams are the favourites to win every Olympics, and their performance is far superior to any other team. The day before, the Russian team had a very good match against Switzerland, winning - 5:2, but in the upcoming battle, it will be extremely difficult to count on points. The statistics of their head-to-head encounters best illustrates the gap in their respective classes. The opponents have met 13 times since 2009. Each time the Stars and Stripes have been stronger with a goal difference of 118-5. As a result, we are forced to place our bet on the victory of the USA team with a handicap (-6.5) for 2.00.

There is no doubt that the American national team will undividedly dominate in the upcoming match and will send a whole haul of pucks to the gates of the Russian national team. However, the chances of attacking the team of Evgeny Bobariko will not be so numerous, but they will be for sure. The Russians have indeed been unable to score in six straight games; however, the day before, they scored five goals against the stout Swiss national team, which shows that they can play well offensively. Based on this, the best option for the prediction seems to be a goal for the Russian national team for 2.81.

Brianna Decker is one of the strongest players in the USA national team at the Olympics 2022. In the last five World Championships, she has played in 34 games and scored 50 points (20 goals + 30 assists), a very high scoring performance. Moreover, she has already participated in the two previous Olympics, where she scored 9 points (2 pucks + 7 assists) in eight games. Surprisingly, in the first match in Beijing, she remained without productive action. Still, she traditionally plays productively against the Russian national team, so it is worth looking at the bet on Brianna Decker Total Over 2.5 points for 1.65.