2010 Olympics: Who's getting the big minutes

I've been working on a couple stats packages after the initial games of the Olympic tournament, looking at some of the leaders from all 240 skaters to this point.

Here are the ice time leaders through the round-robin games, separated into forwards and defencemen:

Rk	Forwards	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	PIM	+/-	M/G
1	THORESEN	Norway	3	0	3	3	0	-2	20:30
2	ZUCCARELLO A.	Norway	3	0	1	1	2	0	19:51
3	VIKINGSTAD	Norway	3	3	0	3	4	-2	19:39
4	DEMITRA	Slovakia	3	1	2	3	2	1	19:30
5	HANSEN	Norway	3	1	0	1	2	-2	19:01
6	ELIAS	Czech Rep.	3	2	2	4	0	0	18:45
7	HOSSA	Slovakia	3	2	1	3	2	1	18:38
8	HANDZUS	Slovakia	3	1	2	3	0	2	18:37
9	GOC	Germany	3	1	1	2	0	-1	18:34
10	GABORIK	Slovakia	3	1	0	1	2	1	18:34

Norway's one of the few teams in the tourney to have shortened its bench so far, and that makes sense on some levels given their lack of depth. These players' plus-minus is pretty impressive given this is a team that's been outscored 19-5 after three games.

Slovakia, meanwhile, has to go with its few key offensive stars in big minutes, and they've delivered so far. Handzus, in particular, has impressed me in facing opponent's top lines.

The top Canadian and American forwards (Crosby and Parise), meanwhile, have both only played in the 17 minute range, something that is likely to change now that we're in must-win territory. 

Rk	Defencemen	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	PIM	+/-	M/G
1	HOLOS	Norway	3	0	0	0	2	-3	28:41
2	TRYGG	Norway	3	0	0	0	0	-5	25:25
3	STREIT	Switzerland	3	0	2	2	0	-1	25:05
4	CHARA	Slovakia	3	0	0	0	4	1	23:51
5	SALO	Finland	3	0	1	1	2	1	23:47
6	TIMONEN	Finland	3	2	0	2	2	1	22:38
7	SEIDENBERG	Germany	3	1	0	1	0	0	22:37
8	EHRHOFF	Germany	3	0	0	0	4	-1	22:34
9	JAKOBSEN	Norway	3	0	1	1	6	-6	22:29
10	WEBER	Canada	3	0	3	3	2	1	22:00

More Norwegians logging huge minutes. I don't know a heckuva lot about Holos other than he plays in the Swedish Elitserien (and I put him on my fantasy team), but being only minus-3 while playing roughly half of Norway's lopsided games is impressive.

The others, save for Weber, aren't surprising given their team's lack depth on the blueline and need to ride their few NHL studs. I imagine we'll see a ton of Ehrhoff and Seidenberg against Canada on Tuesday night. Chara will be a huge part of Slovakia playing spoiler, too. 

Kimmo Timonen's really impressed me in the games I've seen for Finland, as he continues to be one of the NHL's more underrated blueliners.
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