U18 Women’s Worlds Preview: Canada vs. Sweden
TAMPERE, Finland – Canada’s National Men’s Team is bringing dwelling the silver medal from the 2022 IIHF World Championship after falling 4-3 to Finland in an extra time thriller within the gold medal recreation Sunday.
After a scoreless first interval, Dylan Cozens (Whitehorse, Y.T./Buffalo, NHL) broke the impasse on a second-period energy play, firing a one-timer previous Finnish goaltender Jussi Olkinuora – the primary purpose allowed by Finland’s penalty kill within the event. That lead stood till the early minutes of the third interval, when Mikael Granlund scored back-to-back power-play objectives to get the Finns even after which put the hosts forward, and Joel Armia elevated the result in 3-1 with 5:56 left.
With lower than three minutes remaining and the Canadian internet empty, Zach Whitecloud (Brandon, Man./Vegas, NHL) introduced Canada inside one, and Max Comtois (Longueuil, Que./Anaheim, NHL) scored the equalizer with 1:24 left to the ship the sport to extra time. Mathew Barzal (Coquitlam, B.C./New York Islanders, NHL) was instrumental in mounting the comeback, registering the first help on all three Canadian objectives.
Sakari Manninen ended the sport 6:42 into extra time, leaving Canada with its sixteenth silver medal and 51st medal total on the world championship.
“The fact that we were able to come back in two big games shows how much character this team has. We never gave up, we believed in ourselves, and obviously it is difficult to come up short like we did,” mentioned captain Thomas Chabot (Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce, Que./Ottawa, NHL). “We have to give Finland a lot of credit, because they are a great team. They play well together and that is a big reason why they were playing against us today.”
Chris Driedger (Winnipeg, Man/Seattle, NHL) was stellar within the Canadian purpose, stopping 16 pictures earlier than being pressured to go away the sport early within the third interval as a result of harm. Matt Tomkins (Sherwood Park, Alta./Frölunda HC, SHL) made his IIHF World Championship debut in reduction of Driedger, making 11 saves.
A full recreation abstract could be discovered at HockeyCanada.ca.
Following the gold medal recreation, Pierre-Luc Dubois (Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Que./Winnipeg, NHL) was named to the media all-star group.
“To lose in overtime when you are short-handed is frustrating. You work so hard all tournament, and to come that close to winning is a difficult thing to fathom,” mentioned Dubois. “I like to win, and that is why I wanted to represent Canada. It is an honour to represent your country, and this team was unbelievable. We gave it everything we had, we went through the ups and downs, but we stuck with it and we were so close to taking home gold.”
“We had great character on this hockey club. Two big games [against Sweden and Finland] where we were down by two goals, and we were able to tie the games in the final two minutes,” mentioned head coach Claude Julien (Orleans, Ont.). “That shows the type of team we had. I am proud of our guys that came over here to represent Canada, and I am so proud of how hard they played all tournament.”
Canada completed the preliminary spherical in third place in Group A after wins over Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Kazakhstan and France. It booked a spot within the gold medal recreation with a dramatic come-from-behind 4-3 extra time win in opposition to Sweden within the quarterfinals and a convincing 6-1 win over Czechia within the semifinals.
Since 1931, Canada has collected 28 gold medals on the world championship, to go together with 16 silver and 7 bronze.
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