Canada defeats Sweden 3-0, advances to semi-finals to face Finland
A battle between the two remaining unbeaten teams in Group A of the Hlinka Gretzky Cup did not disappoint.
In front of the largest crowd to date in the tournament at the Peavey Mart Centrium, Canada won its final match of the preliminary round against Sweden 3-0 to assert itself as the best team in the group.
However, it was not the usual that Canada has been used to at this tournament and Sweden gave the home team their first big test to date.
Canada head coach Stephane Julien said they had a big challenge ahead of them and what he liked from his team was their commitment to the defensive game.
“I like the commitment also a lot of blocked shots, a very physical game,” Julien said. “A team that was hard to beat in their zone, they were very good one-on-one but I felt that the more the game was offensive we won some pucks, we got some net presence and we put some pucks on the net. Very happy for everyone’s sake and our goalkeeping was incredible once again, Scotty.
Forward Calum Ritchie scored his second goal and seventh point of the tournament (tied for first) to ignite the red sea of Canadian fans into a frenzy.
“Yeah it was great. The atmosphere is unreal here and it was really a good feeling. Yeah, we fought hard there and I got a good bounce, he said. “I really enjoy playing with my linemates. I mean [Kalan] Lind fights really hard and the same with [Mathieu] Cataford and we work really well on the bike. We’ve had a lot of success there so we’ve got to keep it going.”
Swedish goaltender Eric Olsson had a great opening period, stopping 16 Canadian shots, but the Canadians’ shot retention paid off in the second period.
Canada scored their next goals in the middle as arguably the best line of the tournament of Zachary Benson, Ethan Gauthier and Brayden Yager came up in the clutch for their team. Benson fired one into the back of the net and clipped the top shelf off a smart pass from Gauthier, which was Benson’s sixth point of the Hlinka Gretzky Cup. Six minutes later, Yager scored on the power play for his fourth point and seventh of the tournament to extend Canada’s lead 3-0 off a pass from Ritchie.
“I think we fought hard and obviously they showed more back pressure than other teams have and I thought it was a good test for us before the elimination round. I thought we had a good game overall and I’m looking forward to the semi-finals,” Ritchie added.
Olsson finished with an amazing 40 saves for the Swedes and Canadian goalkeeper Scott Ratzlaff earns the shutout with 18 saves.
With the win, Canada will play Finland at 5 p.m. Friday at the Peavey Mart Centrium with a gold medal game birth in the works.
Earlier in the day, the Czech Republic knocked out the USA 3-1 to book a place in the semi-finals to be played on Friday. Jan Kucera, Jan Sprynar and Jakub Dvorak scored for the Czechs and Tanner Adams scored the lone goal for the Americans. Czech Republic goalkeeper Michael Hrabel had an unreal performance, stopping 34 of 35 shots from the USA
Meanwhile, Slovakia beat Switzerland 3-2 in overtime for their first win of the tournament. Slovakian forward Daniel Alexander Jencko opened the scoring for his team and four minutes later the Swiss responded with an own goal from Kevin Zurcher. In the second period, Swiss Rafael Meier took the lead on the power play. Slovakian Adam Cedzo scored minutes later on the power play to make it 2-2. In overtime, Cedzo scored his second goal of the game to seal the win.
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