Canada beats Russia, advances to World cup of Hockey finals

Predictably, the gambit didn’t pay off, as Canada prevailed 5-3. Canada, he noted, was holding the puck constantly, wearing down the Russian defence and peppering Bobrovsky with shots. He set up Brad Marchand late in the second period to tie the game 2-2. Three and a half minutes later John Tavares, who isn’t even playing centre on this team, more or less weaved through traffic on a motorcycle and then popped a wheelie, 5-2.

Sid’s dominance: Crosby has won an incredible 23 straight games for Canada since a loss to the United States during pool play in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

“And when you are able to lead at this level, of a group of leaders, then you are able to take control, that just shows how special of a player he is, and he created that whole goal, and ultimately that did lead to turning the game around”. I’m still trying to take in everything. This game was Crosby at his best on both sides of the ice, a captain willing his team to advance.

Ilya Kovalchuk scored on an overtime power-play victor, the third of three straight unanswered Russian goals in the gold medal game of the 2008 world championships.

The idea for a Team Europe and Team North America centered around the notion of crafting a more competitive tournament. Bobrovsky had to make strong stops on Brad Marchand, Logan Couture and Shea Weber while his team was on the power play. There isnt a single defenceman on Russian Federation who could play for Canada. Ovechkin said this time, “It’s hard, because everybody knew we could beat them”.

Sidney Crosby put Canada ahead in the first period, but goals by Nikita Kucherov and Evgeny Kuznetsov in the second gave Russian Federation a 2-1 advantage by the 36-minute mark. With 49 seconds remaining, Kopitar’s shot hit Swedish defenceman Victor Hedman and almost got under the arm of Lundqvist, who got just enough of the shot to make the save. Team Europe’s Mark Streit (7) and Team Sweden’s Patric Hornqvist (72) battle for the puck during first-period World Cup of Hockey semifinal action in Toronto, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2016. But their first shot of the period came 10 minutes in on a two-on-one, and while Nikita Kucherov’s shot was handsome, a big contributing factor to that goal had to be Carey Price’s long period of inactivity.

Gaborik tied it 1-1 with 3:33 remaining in the second, redirecting a Christian Ehrhoff feed between the legs of Lundqvist for his second goal of the tournament. Russia’s 2-1 advantage ended after 1:12.

Nikita Kucherov (who’s still not signed by the Lightning, BTW) and Evgeny Kuznetsov briefly gave Russian Federation a 2-1 lead and the glimmer of hope that they could pull off the impossible.

Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 42-of-47 shots and nearly single handedly kept his squad in the game at Air Canada Centre.

“Well, I felt great”, Bobrovsky said. “He made a lot of really big saves and really kept them in it, especially in the second [period]”.

Shots at that point were 24-8 in favour of Canada.

Russian Federation managed only one shot on a pair of power plays, with the Canadians actually coming up with the best opportunities shorthanded, including a pair with Brent Burns in the box for tripping. He deftly dropped a pass to Marchand atop the left circle to assist on the winning goal 1:16 into the third.

Everybody, maybe, except the players who wore the stylized maple leaf logo on the front of their jerseys. When Russia emerged they played lovely hockey: they were artists woven together under the brutalism of Soviet Russia.

Crosby and Canada defeated Ovechkin and Russian Federation at the 2005 world junior gold-medal final, 2010 Olympic quarter-finals, 2015 IIHF World Championship gold-medal game and now this game.

Either way, this has been a very interesting tournament and if this is the last time we get to see the two all-star squads play, I’ll miss them.