Vancouver Games turn NHL teammates into opponents

Pavel Datsyuk will be a Russian first and foremost over the next two weeks.

His ties to the Detroit Red Wings will lag far behind.

"You don't have friends on the ice," the dazzling center said when asked about teammates turning into opponents at the Olympics. "Off ice, we're friends."

In Vancouver, a lot of friends will become foes.

The San Jose Sharks have eight players on provisional rosters and they're spread out over five teams: Canada, United States, Sweden, Russia and Germany.

"The stakes are high, so we're not going to pull any punches," said forward Joe Thornton, one of four Sharks slated to suit up for the host Canadians. "I think it's going to be exciting and we're going to have a lot of fun with it."

American Ryan Suter is also looking forward to facing as many as four of his Nashville teammates representing four countries.

"It'll be a game within a game and a competition within the big picture," Suter said.

Thornton said on the Sharks' flight home from Buffalo on Saturday night, he expected to discuss side bets such as forcing teammate Evgeni Nabokov, a Russian goaltender, to wear maple leaf-filled gear if he loses.

"Or, maybe something worse than that," Thornton said with a grin.

It will not be fun and games if somebody gets injured, though, and NHL owners will be holding their breath, hoping their players don't hurt each other and derail their chances for winning the Stanley Cup.

Swedish defenseman Niklas Kronwall is one of the fiercest hitters in the NHL, and he might have a shot to lay out a Red Wings teammate such as Datsyuk, American Brian Rafalski or Finn Valtteri Filppula.

"You don't even have it in your mind that you're going to smoke somebody, or try to hurt somebody," Kronwall insisted. "But you play as close to the line as you can with as much toughness as possible."

Filppula, whose first opportunity to play in the Olympics might get derailed by a groin injury, said Kronwall shouldn't think twice about hitting him in open ice or a corner.

"I think guys will play the way they normally play because the game is too fat to think, `Hey, that's my NHL teammate," Filppula said. "I'm sure Kronner will try to light me up if he can.

"That's the way it should be."

The NHL has not decided if its players will be allowed to compete at the 2014 Olympics in Russia.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has repeatedly said that league's participation will require extensive discussions between it and the NHL Players' Association. He says shutting down the league for two weeks creates problem _ especially when the Olympics are staged outside of North America.

Kronwall, who will try to help Sweden repeat as Olympic champions, hopes this isn't his last chance to run into an NHL teammate at the Olympics.

"It's kind of the beauty of it," he said. "Maybe on the ice, you're swearing at each other and the next week, you're going out to dinner and it's all back to normal."

After pulling for Swedish and Red Wings star Nicklas Lidstrom in Vancouver, defenseman Douglas Murray will be rooting against the 39-year-old defenseman as a member of the Sharks.

"I want nothing less than gold for Nick because this will probably be his last big tournament," Murray said. "But then, I don't want him to win the Cup!"