EDMONTON –
It took until the end of Saturday’s gold medal game, but Canada eventually faced adversity at the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.
After giving the Finns a two-goal lead, Kent Johnson came to the rescue. At 3:20 of overtime, Johnson ricocheted home his own shot to give Canada a 3-2 win and the gold medal.
In third, Canada led 2-0 but the Finns hit back to level the game in front of 13,327 fans at Rogers Place. After only 13 shots in the first two halves, the Finns netted 17 shots in the third, scoring goals from Aleksi Heimosalmi and Joakim Kemell to send the game into overtime.
The Canadians had many chances to bury the Finns but went 6-0 on regular power play.
Canada also scored goals from Joshua Roy and William Dufour. With two assists in the game, Mason McTavish finished as the tournament’s top scorer with eight goals and nine assists. He was named MVP of the tournament.
But McTavish’s finest moment might not have been a goal or an assist, it was him clearing Topi Niemela’s shot that looked like a tournament win off the line just seconds before Johnson scored the decisive goal.
From the group stage to the elimination round, Canada’s smallest margin over victory was three. But the gold medal game against Finland presented a new kind of challenge for the Canadians, as the opposition went into a defensive shell right from the first pass.
The Finns clogged the middle of the ice and disrupted the flow of the game. When Canada gained control of the puck in the Finnish final, four of Finland’s five fielders collapsed in front of their own goal, serving as a block for goalkeeper Juha Jatkola. From above it looked like the Finns played with only one forward and four defenders.
But Canada broke through the Finnish blockade at 11:18 am of the first. McTavish came out from behind the Finnish goal, his shot was stopped by Jatkola but the rebound landed on Joshua Roy who didn’t miss.
Finally, at 12:05 p.m., the Finn Kalle Vaisanen scored his team’s first shot on goal.
Canada didn’t give the Finns a chance to slow them down in the second. Just 41 seconds into the third, a wrist shot from Dufour defeated Jatkola.
Canada forward Kent Johnson had a chance to improve his team by three around the quarter’s half, but Jatkola denied him an escape chance.
Perhaps the lack of performance from the Finns – just 13 shots – in the first two thirds lulled Canada to sleep. They came out with more offensive determination in the final third, halving the Canadian lead at 4:09. Heimosalmi’s goal shot flew through traffic and over the shoulder of Canadian goalkeeper Dylan Garand.
At 10:46 the Finns equalised, Kemell hitting a perfect pass from Topi Niemela.
Canada overtook the Finns 33-31.
What place does this Canadian performance hold in world youth history? Before the final, Switzerland came closest to making the Canadians sweat in that tournament, who edged the Canadians to within 5-3 in the quarterfinals, a game the Canadians would win 6-3.
Canada won their four Group A games by an aggregate score of 27-7.
But in 2005, Canada’s greatest junior team of all time – with players like Sidney Crosby, Patrice Bergeron, Ryan Getzlaf, Brent Seabrook and Corey Perry – went 4-0-0 in the group stage, scoring 32 goals and giving up just five. The Canadians defeated the Czechs 3-1 in the semifinals and triumphed over Russia 6-1 in the final.
While the world’s juniors were plagued by weak attendance, the gold medal game featured the largest and liveliest crowd of the event. For the only time during the tournament, seats were opened to fans in the upper bowl of Rogers Place.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on August 19, 2022.