VANCOUVER — Switzerland will attempt to accomplish what Team Canada couldn’t: beat Brian Burke’s young Americans.

The Swiss earned that right Tuesday with a dramatic 3-2 shootout victory over Belarus in the first of four qualifying matches in Olympic men’s hockey. They’ll face undefeated Team U.S.A. at Wednesday afternoon at Canada Hockey Place as the tournament enters the quarter-final stage.

It didn’t take long for the Swiss to play the underdog card, which seems to be a popular strategy here.

“I think the pressure is off for us,” declared Swiss captain Mark Streit, the New York Islanders defenceman. “We made the quarters and now we can play a little bit easier . . . you know, free-minded. The weight is off our shoulders. I think we’ll be the underdog, but we’ll play as hard as possible.”

Swiss netminder Jonas Hiller surrendered an ugly first-minute goal to Belarus on Tuesday but was otherwise stellar, making 20 saves and two more in the shootout, including a final stop on Sergei Kostitsyn. Thomas Deruns and Romano Lemm beat Belarus netminder Andrei Mezin in the shootout as both deked to the glove side. Dmitri Meleshko scored the Belarusians’ lone shootout goal.

The teams were tied 1-1 after one period and 2-2 after two, with Julien Sprunger and Edmonton-born Hnat Domenichelli scoring for Switzerland, and Aleksei Kalyuzhny and Konstantin Zakharov replying for the Belarusians.

Ten minutes of 4-on-4 sudden-death overtime couldn’t break the deadlock. The Swiss held a wide margin in shots, 42-22.

The Swiss won’t have much opportunity to recovery while the Americans will be coming off two days’ rest.

“We are going to need Jonas playing an unbelievable game and to make maybe a miracle,” Streit said. “It’s going to be a tough, tough challenge. But I’d rather not get the rest and play. If you lose, you’re out and then you can rest.”

The Swiss and Americans have already met in the tournament with the latter prevailing 3-1 in the opener for both last Tuesday.

“That first game wasn’t a very good game for us, but we showed we can play better against North American teams when we played Canada,” Hiller noted. “We want to do something in the U.S. zone and not just wait until they are in our zone. We want to put them under pressure and see how that goes. We have to keep the mistakes down and the longer it stays a tight score, the better for us.

“At the end, they have to win. Mentally, that’s probably easier for us than it was against Belarus.”

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