Finland on top of the world
Finland won gold on home ice for the first time, defeating Canada 4-3 in overtime after an enthralling World Championship final. Earlier in the day, there was a morale-boosting win for the Czechs as they fought back to defeat Team USA and win bronze.
Manninen wins it for Finland
Finland 4 Canada 3 OT (0-0, 0-1, 3-2, 1-0)
An overtime winner from Sakari Manninen saw Finland win gold on home ice in Tampere. The former Salavat Yulaev man’s one-timer off a Mikael Granlund feed came on a power play in the seventh minute of the extras and gave the Finns a rare Olympic and World Championship golden double after Jukka Jalonen’s men triumphed in Beijing back in February.
“For sure it's great,” said the former SKA and Jokerit head coach. “We haven't had any medals before in home championships, and now we took the gold medal. We are very happy and very proud about that.
“And this year’s double gold is unbelievable. You can't even understand what has happened. Maybe in the summer, we can figure out what really happened. But three months and two gold medals, it's unbelievable.”
Granlund assisted on the game-winner and scored two earlier in the game as the Finnish power play excelled once again. But he also went through the emotional mill along with everyone else in the building as Canada scored twice in the last three minutes to turn a 3-1 deficit into a 3-3 tie and force the extras. After victory, a release of joy.
“What an ending to the game,” he enthused. “They tied it up in the third period but we found a way in the end and this is just awesome. I think there’s no hockey for a little bit, so let’s just enjoy this.”
It’s Finland’s fifth World title, and the Nordic nation’s second in three years. But it’s the first time in nine attempts that the Leijonat have won a medal in this tournament on home ice, a run dating back to Tampere’s first year as host back in 1965.
For the third time in a row, Finland faced Canada in the final. In 2019, the Finns came out on top in Bratislava but last year Canada got its revenge with an overtime win in Riga.
This year, Finland has already made history. Following a first ever Olympic triumph, the Leijonat secured a World Championship medal on home ice for the first time. But Sunday’s showdown would determine the color of that medal.
The Canadians shaded a goalless first period, but it wasn’t until Finland took the first penalty of the game – a hooking call on Niklas Friman – that the deadlock was broken early in the second. Canada needed just 25 seconds on the power play to engineer a shooting chance for Dylan Cozens and the Buffalo Sabres center scored his seventh goal of the tournament. That tied him in the goal scoring race with his team-mate Jean-Luc Dubois and Czechia’s David Pastrnak.
However, in the two previous gold medal meetings between these teams, the opening goal went to the eventual loser. And at the start of the third, as Canada ran into penalty trouble, history began to repeat itself. A 5-on-3 advantage was too good a chance for the Finnish PP to turn down and after Miro Heiskanen hammered a shot into the back boards, Mikael Granlund reacted first with a snipe from the bottom of the left-hand circle to tie the game. On the same play, Canadian starting goalie Chris Driedger appeared to take an injury and Matt Tomkins, who plays his club hockey in Sweden with Frolunda, took over.
That goal was the spark that the home crowd needed. Throughout the tournament, Finnish fans have brought the noise to the Nokia Arena and now the volume was turned up to 11. The power play continued and when Tomkins’ first touch almost presented Heiskanen with a scoring chance there was another great roar from the crowd.
But that was drowned out a minute or so later when Granlund grabbed his second of the game, firing through traffic into the top corner of Tomkins’ net. In 2011, Granlund announced himself as a major talent when he helped Finland win gold in Bratislava with a lacrosse goal into Russia’s net in the semi-final. Today, as an experienced NHLer, he turned the game around for his country to lay the foundations for home ice gold.
With six minutes left, a Juho Lammiko face-off win enabled Joel Armia to nip in and make it 3-1 to Finland. However, Canada had wiped out Sweden’s 3-1 advantage in the closing minutes of their quarter-final. And when Zach Whitecloud’s snipe made it 2-3 with 2:12 to play, the mood grew understandably tense. The agony was prolonged: a video review was needed to established whether Adam Lowry’s challenge on Heiskanen had moved the net off its moorings; the officials ultimately ruled it a good goal.
Canada withdrew Tomkins to play six-on-five and got a dramatic tying goal when Max Comtois planted a wrister home from the slot. For the second time in four days, Canada had saved itself in the final seconds.
That forced overtime, for the second year running. New IIHF rules mean that gold medal games are to be settled by unlimited overtime – albeit played as 3-on-3 – and the Finns had a vital 17-minute intermission in which to regroup after seeing the trophy snatched from their grasp in regulation.
“Mostly we talked about concentration,” said defenseman Niklas Friman. “We talked about some things like if they get a penalty or if we get a penalty, how to play those situations. But it’s 3-on-3, we know you have to be very patient, try to get 2-on-1 attacks but we didn’t say anything special.”
Czech bronze ends 10-year medal drought
Czech Republic 8 USA 4 (1-3, 1-0, 6-1)
The Czech Republic ended a 10-year wait for a World Championship medal after a blistering third period performance won the bronze-medal game in Tampere.
Czechia did it the hard way, trailing 1-3 after 20 minutes as Karson Kuhlman struck twice either side of an Adam Gaudette effort for the Americans. Jiri Cernoch got one back for the Czechs, but it looked as though the wait for World Championship hardware was destined to continue.
However, in the second period things began to change and when Jiri Smejkal pulled one back midway through the middle frame it proved to be a lifeline for Kari Jalonen’s team.
“I think the second period we had some good stuff in there,” said Smejkal, who played half a season in the KHL with Medvescak Zagreb back in 2016-2017. “We had many chances and thank God we got a goal and that really helped us going into the third that we were just down by one.”
Even at 2-3, though, nobody expected the Czech explosion in the final frame. David Pastrnak struck twice in the first four minutes, with a Roman Cervenka effort in between. Team captain Cervenka finished the tournament with 17 (5+12) points to win the scoring race. Jalonen shuffled his lines in the third, putting Pastrnak with Tomas Hertl in search of a new attacking formula.
That was the tangible change, but Former Jokerit man David Sklenicka underlined the mindset that the Czech players took into the final frame.
“We just said that this is the last 20 minutes of our season,” he said. “We knew we wouldn’t have another chance to change anything. Then we went out and shot twice and scored two goals.
“After that the Americans were disappointed and we scored a couple more, which made it easy for us.”
David Kampf added two more to put the game well beyond reach before youngster Thomas Bordeleau grabbed a consolation tally for the USA. But there was still time for Pastrnak to complete his hat-trick, with an assist from Cervenka to round off a big championship for the former Avangard and SKA man.
Players of the tournament
Finnish goalie Juho Olkinuora was voted tournament MVP after backstopping his country to gold. The former Metallurg man also won the IIHF directorate award for the best goalie. His team-mate Mikko Lehtonen was chosen as best defenseman and best forward went to Roman Cervenka of Czechia.
The media All-Star team for the tournament was as follows:
Goalie: Olkinuora (FIN)
Defense: Lehtonen (FIN), Jones (USA)
Forwards: Dubois (CAN), Cervenka (CZE), Manninen (FIN).
Hall of Famers inducted
Earlier in the day, the IIHF inducted six new faces into the Hall of Fame. The list was originally drawn up in team for the 2020 tournament that was due to be held in Switzerland, and two of those honored were Mathias Seger and Mark Streit, long-serving defensemen on the Swiss national team. Seger’s record of 16 World Championship appearances stood until earlier this month when Andres Ambuhl’s 17 tournament eclipsed him. Streit played almost 800 NHL games and was the first Swiss player to wear the ‘C’ in the big league.
Another decorated defenseman, Finland’s Kimmo Timonen, was also nominated. He recovered from serious health issues to win the Stanley Cup with Chicago in 2015.
In the ‘builder’ category, Korea’s Mong Won Chung was nominated for his work with the Korean Hockey Federation and the creation of the teams for the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang. In particular, Chung played a big role in setting up the unified Korean women’s team at that tournament.
Long-serving Dutch hockey stalwart Ron Berteling won the Bibi Torriani award, while Hungary’s Zoltan Kovacs won the Paul Loicq award.
Main photo: © Eurasia Sport Images / Getty Sport / GettyImages.ru
