Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad sat out Team North America’s 4-3 loss to Russian Federation last night at Air Canada Centre in Toronto.
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Despite the win by Team North America (2-1), Russian Federation (1-1) hold the tiebreaker over the youngsters and earn the other semi-final berth if they beat Finland (0-2) on Thursday to close out Group B play.
Stanley Cup-winning goaltender Matt Murray made 24 saves but mostly had an easy night as North America outshot Finland 43-25, including an 18-6 domination in the second period.
The opening eight minutes, and much of the first period, belonged to speedy North America and it found itself ahead 2-0 just 1:35 into the game on goals from Auston Matthews and Vincent Trocheck.
3 minutes into the 3rd, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was able to bat a puck in on the power play to make it a 1 goal game.
And while Team North America had a particularly strong third period in which had a 19-4 bulge on the shot clock, it couldn’t overcome going haywire in the middle of the second period.
“We have to treat the next game like it’s do or die, because it may be”, said Rielly.
North America doesn’t just belong in the elite tournament full of nearly 200 of the best players in the world; it might be one of the most skilled from top to bottom. Henrik Lundqvist stopped 39 shots. Bobrovsky would definitely like it back, but Sweden’s continued pressure made it hard to say whether or not he’d have actually been able to keep it back.
I dunno, what do you think?
Russian Federation looked flat early on, which Team North took advantage of via the brilliance of Connor McDavid who skated through the defence and set up Auston Matthews with a simple tap-in goal to go ahead 1-0 after one period.
The Oilers forward split the defence at Sweden’s blue line before getting a shot off that was stopped by Lundqvist.
“We had no choice”. A matter of inches was all that kept this game from going to overtime. Russian Federation is built on the strength of their offense led by Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Vladimir Tarasenko but it was their defense and goaltending that played well yesterday and if they’re going to get a victory against North America here they are going to have to find a way to generate some offense as that is their opponent’s strength for sure. That was the end for Murray, who was replaced by John Gibson.
Not down at all about the loss, Sweden went into the game with a full understanding of what it needed to do.
Captain Connor McDavid made the play, using his speed to accelerate past Pavel Datsyuk after defenceman Colton Parayko retrieved the rebound of an Alex Ovechkin shot and sent it up the boards.
Gaudreau switched up his breakaway approach to restore the two-goal lead for North America.
Florida Panthers general manager Tom Rowe told beat reporters that Ekblad was concussed and shouldnt play another game in the tournament.
Matthews opened the scoring with a tap-in at 5:14 of the first period, a goal announcement that Leaf Nation hopes to be hearing for many years to come.
Canada clinched top spot in Group A with a 4-1 win over Europe with two goals from Jonathan Toews and one from Sidney Crosby. “You can see everybody sacrificing, and we get the result”.
The rest of Group B, Team Finland and Team Sweden, take to the ice on Tuesday, September 20th at 3pm.
You’ve got your barbecue fired up, and you’ve called everyone you know to come over. “We wish him all the best in his recovery”.
“Well, I think it was good for the fans”, Rielly said after a physical game featuring elite skill and momentum swings.
Last year, the former Vezina victor went 2-8-0 in October, while posting a putrid.865 save percentage. Four of the past five No. 1 picks were at their best Saturday night offensively and defensively.
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Sweden eventually came back to force the overtime, setting the stage for MacKinnon’s heroics. “It was fun, a fun goal”.
