CALGARY, Canada – The International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championships Semi-Finals produced two tense exciting games especially and when the ice chips settled Sweden and Russia will skate for the U-20 gold on Thursday. Sweden held off Finland 3-2 via a shutout while Canada’s Russian style comeback failed as they stormed back in the third period to score four goals but lost 6-5. They were unable to duplicate Russia’s comeback in last year’s Championship game that cost Canada the gold medal in 2011.
Russia will try and repeat as champions as Sweden seeks to claim its first gold since 1981. The Championship game will be held Thursday night in Calgary. Canada will skate for the bronze medal against Finland.
Semi-Finals Action
Sweden-3, Finland-2 (Shootout)
Max Friberg scored the winner in a shootout as well as setting up one goal and nailing his tournament leading eighth goal to lead the Swedes to a 3-2 shootout win over Finland. Goaltender Johan Gustafsson made 22 saves to grab the win while Sami Aittokallio stopped 55 of 57 shots in a valiant effort in taking the loss.
The huge crowd of 15,690 fans saw Finland commit two critical mistakes that prevented them from upsetting the favored Swedes. After leading the game at the end of two periods 2-0 the Finns surrendered two third period goals, the last with just 1:44 left in regulation time that allowed Sweden to tie the game 2-2. The two teams then played ten minutes of scoreless overtime before Sweden prevailed in the shootout round.
What really stung was the way Sweden got both the tying goal and then prevailed in the shootout. The tying Swedish goal came as it appeared almost certain that the Finns would advance to the medal game. Aittokallio made an error when he attempted a clearing pass along the glass to his left. The goal tender skated behind the net, handled the puck and tried to loft it high along the glass out of his zone. His attempt was batted down by Swedish Johan Sundstrom who centered to Friberg in the slot who had an uncontested view of the back of the net as Aittokallio scrambled to get back to his crease. In a blink of an eye 58:16 of hard Finnish work was erased and the Swedes were alive.
The second mistake was almost as painful. It happened when Finnish Captain Mikael Granlund over skated the puck and lost control on his attempted penalty shot after Sweden had taken a 2-1 lead in the three player rotation shootout.
The Finns opened the scoring in the game at 18:29 of the first period on a goal by Alexander Ruuttu. They held onto the 1-0 lead and then extended it to 2-0 at 15:30 of period two. On the first Finnish goal Miro Aaltonen carried the puck into the Swedish zone around two defensemen and made a perfect centering pass to Ruuttu in the slot who spanked it home past Gustafsson. A great play by Joel Armia resulted in the second Finnish goal. Armia hounded Sweden’s Joakim Nordstrom, lifted his stick and stole the puck and fired a shot past Gustafsson who was left defenseless.
Sweden finally got on scoreboard just over three minutes into the final regulation time period. They got a power play goal as a hard shot from Johan Larsson was stopped by Aittokallio but rebounded out and then off the skate of William Karlsson to cut the margin to 2-1.
Despite the momentum change Finland continued to hold tough and looked to be in control. Finally with about two and one half minutes left in regulation Swedish coach Roger Ronnberg used his timeout. Whatever he said and planned worked as Friberg converted the Finnish goal tender’s mistake into the 2-2 tie and the eventual shoot out win.
Sebastian Colberg and Friberg scored in the shootout round for Sweden while Armia scored for Finland. Meanwhile Gustafsson stopped Joonas Donskoi and then Granlund failed to get his shot launched. Finland will play for the Bronze medal on Thursday.
Russia-6, Canada-5
In a game full of déjà vu this time Canada allowed the Russians to jump out to a 6-1 lead but then scored four goals in a five minute span in the third period and stormed the Russian goal for the last five plus minutes of the game to make a runaway a barn burner. In the end they came up short in another Canada-Russia classic WJC game. The finale will be an oddity as Canada has skated in the Championship game ten straight times.
Yevgeni Kuznetsov scored three goals and added an assist and Nail Yakupov had four assists while goal tender Andrei Vasilevski stopped 49 of 54 shots in the wild west shootout. Brendan Gallagher led Canada with a goal and two assists. Canada played both of their goal tenders.
Russia struck first in tonight’s game as Kuznetsov scored 7:26 into the first period. His shot deflected off the helmet of diving Canadian defenseman Ryan Murray past goal tender Scott Wedgewood into the net for the 1-0 lead. Nail Yakupov got an assist on the opening goal. Russia also got the second goal this one on a power play at 13:50 came off the wand of Nikita Nesterov and was set up by Grigori Zheldakov.
Despite the 2-0 lead the Russians were to some extent lucky. First the Canadians threw everything including the kitchen sink at Andrei Vasilevski all period and especially on their first power play of the night. The young 17 year old goal tender denied a sure goal off the stick of Jonathan Huberdeau sliding across the crease to get his pad on the close in shot. Somehow the puck deflected up on top of the net as the Canadian’s premature goal celebration was cut short.
Next a hooking penalty to Artyom Sergeyev and a foolish high stick retaliation penalty by Vasilevski 46 seconds later gave Canada a two man advantage. Again they stormed the crease and peppered the Russian net minder and frequently just missed but could not dent the Russian defense. Unfortunately the two man advantage was cut short when Dougie Hamilton picked up his own high sticking penalty about a minute after the two man advantage commenced. The period ended with Russia holding on 2-0.
The second period action picked up where the first period left off with Canada getting three immediate chances and an empty net look that went wide. The pressure paid off as Tampa Bay NHL player Brett Connolly broke through after two and half minutes of unrelenting pressure in the Russian zone. The referee had signaled a delayed penalty when Connolly went to the goalie’s short side with a wrist shot cutting the Russian lead in half. One assist on the goal went to Freddie Hamilton on the score which came at 2:37.
The host nation team continued the pressure but Washington Capitals prospect Kuznetsov pushed Canada back into a two goal hole 3-1. The Russian team captain coming down the wing on a three on two rush hammered a wrist shot that hit the stick shaft of the defenseman Murray and deflected past Wedgewood. This goal came less than two minutes after Connolly had broken the scoring ice. Oddly at this point two of the three Russian goals had deflected off Murray.
Kuznetsov’s third goal came at 8:48 of the second period. The Russians caught Canada in a line change and rushed into the zone against just one defenseman. He got his hat trick on a nice feed from Yakupov who threaded the Canadian defense and set up the perfect back hand shot by Kuznetsov.
The 4-0 lead drove Wedgewood from the net and in came Mark Visentin. He got a quick baptism as Russia extended the lead again to 5-1 this time with the man advantage. A high sticking penalty to Brendan Gallagher was converted by Alexander Khokhlachev at 10:30. Kuznetsov and Yakupov got helpers on the fifth Russian score. That score held up and the Russian skated off for the second intermission with a 5-1 lead.
Even though there was no more scoring there was lots of action including a number of penalties including a major and game misconduct to Boone Jenner for spearing and a ten minute misconduct to Huberdeau as the Canadians continued to stumble. The result was fewer opportunities for Canada to climb back into the game.
Once again Canada came out flying with lots of pressure gaining an early period power play but it was Russia who got the first goal of the period. The Russians ran the score to 6-1 at 12:06 as Nikita Kucherov got a short pass tap in off a rush and passes from Ignat Zemchenko and Mikhail Grigorenko.
It was at this point that the Canadian woke up and the comeback began. First Dougie Hamilton picked up his second goal of the tournament on a power play at 9:20 and then Jaden Schwartz got credit for a puck that deflected in off a Russian at 9:43. Brendan Gallagher struck at 11:59 and Brandon Gormley nailed the fifth goal via a redirection on a power play at 14:17.
The final 5:43 featured tremendous Canadian pressure, unrelenting crowd noise, shots that hit the Russian goal post twice, a number of near misses and multiple point blank saves by Vasilevski. In the end the game came down a faceoff in the Russian zone with about two seconds left and the Canadian goal empty for the extra attacker. It was not to be however as the rally came up one goal short as the horn sounded and Russia advanced.
In Relegation Round play the United States secured their spot in next year’s WJC with a 12-2 win over Latvia and avoided relegation with the win.
Contact the author at Phil.Brand@prohockeynews.com
