WEST VALLEY CITY, UTAH -- Canada heads into today's semi-final game of the Olympic men's hockey tournament still looking for the offensive game it promised to bring.

While various reasons are offered to explain a mere 10 goals in four games, fewer than half of the output by the United States (21), all members of Team Canada say the important thing is they are still playing, needing only a win against Belarus today to reach the gold-medal game.

Also, Russia, which plays the Americans today in the other semi-final game, has the same number of goals as Canada, despite allegedly having the most skilled players in the game.

Eight Canadian forwards have yet to score a goal, with Mario Lemieux and Joe Sakic leading the way with only two each. Canada has been outscored 11-10, despite outshooting the opposition 142-87. Only Austria, which didn't make it out of the preliminary round, is worse in goal-scoring efficiency.

"You look at the tournament, look at the Russians and the Czechs, and the 1-0 games, and look at all that talent on the ice," Lemieux said yesterday.

"But that's way the tournament is. The players are strong and fast, and they're able to close quickly on the puck area even though it's the big ice surface.

"You don't get as much time as you think, even with all that skill out there. Everybody has a lot of talent and is able to play both ways," he said.

Theo Fleury, who raised a lot of eyebrows yesterday when he suggested the Canadians are underdogs against Belarus. "They beat the Swedes and the Swedes beat us," he pointed out.

Fleury also said the goaltenders are not getting enough credit.

"With the bigger [international] ice, it's not real physical. It's a different style, one we're not used to playing. I think the goaltending in this tournament has been outstanding, right from the first game we played. That's why we're having trouble scoring."

The Canadians are taking comfort in the fact they are still creating scoring chances. But Wayne Gretzky, the team's executive director, would like to see some selfishness to turn those chances into goals.

"As silly as it sounds, you need to be more selfish," he said. "By that, I mean we just need to shoot the puck, crash the net. We don't need to be overly fancy. If we do that, I just think simplifying things will make it better for the team."

The power play has produced only one goal in 10 opportunities, which is a major reason for the sputtering offence. Gretzky feels the unit does not have to set any records to be successful.

"You don't need to be nine of 10 to have that great power play," he said. "You just need the power play to get that big goal. In a 1-1 game, if you can get that big goal, that's all you want from a power play."

The Belarus game is seen by many as a chance to run up those statistics.

Gretzky and the players did their best yesterday to avoid an impression they were looking beyond Belarus to a gold-medal showdown with the Americans or Russians on Sunday.

Gretzky, however, did a double-take when told that Fleury had branded the Canadians the underdog.

"Who said that?" Gretzky said. "Well, this is one time we're the overwhelming favourites. But we had better be ready to play. [The Belarussians] are going to come out hard. They've got nothing to lose.

"They're thrilled with where they're at. Someone told me they had their flights and trucks ready to go after [the game against Sweden]. I don't know if that's true, but our guys had better be ready to play."

The key to playing such a huge underdog, the players feel, is to get a quick goal and avoid penalties.

"It's important that we get off to a good start and take away their will to win right away," Fleury said. "We have to let them know we're there to win and to compete."

Andrei Mezin, the goaltender who frustrated the Swedes in the shocking quarter-final upset, is an unknown quantity to the Canadians. Then again, just about all the Belarussians are, with the exceptions of defenceman Ruslan Salei and forward Vladimir Tsyplakov.

But Lemieux and his fellow forwards plan to spend time getting to know Mezin better.

"He was awesome in their last game, he made some key saves in the third period," Lemieux said. "He's not a big guy, but he's quick. I'm sure we'll look at some tapes tonight and see how good he is."