GANGNEUNG, South Korea — The blistering pace on the ice and the atmosphere in the arena was reminiscent of the epic showdown between the United States and Russia in Sochi four years ago.

That’s where the similarities end.

When the teams met again at the Olympics on Saturday night without NHL players, Ilya Kovalchuk and the Russians put on a clinic – outplaying, outhitting and outclassing the U.S. in a 4-0 shutout.

The U.S. must now play in the qualification round Tuesday, while Russians finished first in the group and move on directly to the quarterfinals, hoping their dominance puts T.J. Oshie’s shootout performance in 2014 further in the rearview mirror.

n The Czech Republic rallied twice to hand the Canadian men’s hockey team its first Olympic loss in eight years Saturday, riding goaltender Pavel Francouz to a 3-2 win in a shootout.

WOMEN’S HOCKEY: The Russian team and Finland have set up a pair of rematches for the women’s hockey semifinals with a couple of big wins.

Anna Shokhina had two goals and two assists as the Olympic Athletes from Russia advanced with an upset 6-2 win over Switzerland on Saturday. Riikka Valila scored two goals as Finland routed Sweden 7-2 in a little payback for a quarterfinal loss to the Swedes at the 2014 Sochi Gmes.

FIGURE SKATING: Nathan Chen finally admitted the pressure of being the face of American figure skating got to him, winding him up so tight for his short program that it ended in what he described as a “disaster.”

All that pressure was gone for his free skate.

Out of medals contention and finally skating with a clear mind, the 18-year-old prodigy landed an unparalleled six quadruple jumps in a historic performance at the PyeongChang Olympics. His personal-best score of 215.08 points Saturday was more than enough to win the free skate, and helped move up to fifth place. Yuzuru Hanyu and Shoma Uno took the gold and the silver medals for Japan.

SPEEDSKATING: Samuel Girard yelled and signaled No. 1 with both index fingers as he crossed the finish line first. Just behind him John-Henry Krueger spread his arms in a can-you-believe-it gesture. The Canadian and the American claimed gold and silver in the men’s 1,000-meter short track, upsetting the powerful South Koreans.

SKI JUMPING: After missing the podium a week ago, defending Olympic champion Kamil Stoch came up big on the large hill.

The 30-year-old Polish ski jumper had leaps of 135 and 136.5 meters for 285.7 points to win the gold medal on the large hill at the PyeongChang Games.

SKELETON: Lizzy Yarnold picked the perfect time to end a three-year winless streak, and extended Britain’s dominance in women’s skeleton in the process.

Yarnold won her second consecutive Olympic women’s skeleton gold medal Saturday, leaving no doubt by setting a track record in the fourth and final heat to beat Germany’s Jacqueline Loelling by nearly a half-second.

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