The 19-year-old Edmonton Oilers centre had collected eight assists in the first nine games of the tournament, but was one of just two Canadian forwards not to have recorded a goal coming into the gold-medal game.
Advertisement
After Canada took an early two-goal lead, the United States struck for three straight second-period goals.
Brendan Gallagher, Brad Marchand and Derick Brassard scored the other goals for Canada, while Auston Matthews, David Warsofsky and Tyler Motte lit the lamp for the Americans.
Two former University of MI players then connected when Tyler Motte picked up his first tournament goal on a pass from Dylan Larkin to the front of the net for a score at 28:25 to put the US up 3-2.
Sunday’s bronze-medal game was also notable given the U.S. Department of Justice has reportedly investigated the ongoing Russian Olympic sports doping scandal that implicates the Russian Olympic women’s hockey team. This is the first time that Canada’s won back-to-back gold medals at the worlds since 2003-2004.
But Russia put the Finns under pressure in the opening minutes and SKA St Petersburg forward Sergei Shirokov put the home team into the lead 2:52 into the game, sending home a rebound after Finland goaltender Koskinen, Shirokov’s club team-mate, parried his initial close-range shot.
Detroit Red Wings teammates will battle one another for bronze at the hockey world championship.
In a hard-hitting second period, Canada outshot the Finns 13-4.
“They don’t always have to be pretty, especially on the power play”.
Finland boasted a flawless record of nine victories in all matches they played at this championship in Russian Federation and knocked out the hosts 3-1 on Saturday in a semifinal match on Saturday to roam into the deciding match for the title.
Head coach Bill Peters, who served as an assistant to Todd McLellan during Canada’s gold-medal run past year, saw the USA team’s potential from Day 1. Their goalie was good again, They kept us to the outside. Teemu Pulkkinen has not played since late in the preliminary round as he’s been the spare forward for Finland. “We try to play better and better in every game and we’re set to keep on doing that”.
Advertisement
“I thought today for us it was a good opportunity to be able to compete for a medal”, United States manager John Hynes said. “We weren’t able to create much, and they deserve all the credit tonight”. “We have to be ready to play hard”.
