Canada and Finland will host a final of the 2016 Elite World Hockey Championship after the Maple Leafs beat the United States 4-3 in a revolutionary showdown in North America. Earlier, the Finns knocked out the host Russians with a 3-1 victory.
Canada and the United States
The same third (12) shot was fired on goal by the two North American teams, and there is another problem which is that Canada targeted more accurately, and the result was Brendan Gallagher in the ninth minute and Brad Marchand in the 19th minute against Keith Kinkaid. This was pretty much in line with the maple leaf, but Derek Brasard got a two-minute penalty kick that the US didn’t even use for the bagpipes, but after a turn, it did – Aston Matthews spruced it up in the 22nd minute.
The Americans gained momentum by reversing their stance in the 29th minute – with a blow from David Warsowski and Tyler Mutet – and also taking advantage of a human advantage after their third goal, but were unable to turn that into a goal. Not so from Canadian Frank Vatrano’s penalty kick, Brasard made it 3 to 3 in the 36th minute.
In the third round, American Conor Murphy flew for two minutes (plus disciplinary action), but Canada scored not from the man advantage but from equal numbers – in the 42nd minute, Ryan Ellis scored 4-3! It was the decisive blow – despite sending 33 shots to the United States, he couldn’t equalize.
Russia and Finland
It took only three minutes for the host to take the lead, which raised the mood: Sergey Serukov Miku Koskinin died after 2:52. The Russians played more dangerously in the first quarter, with a 4: 10 shot ratio showing their advantage – but the score remained unchanged, and none of the teams took advantage of the man.
It was not so in the jump: in the 25th minute Alexei Marcenko was scattered by the referees, Sebastian Ahopedig was penalized as well, tied for the center. After 1-1, the Finns had to get rid of two human defects (they did) and then, as they continued after the Antti Pihlström exhibition, they achieved the lead. Patrick Lynn prepared it from the left flank, he offered Jose Jokinen a precise cross pass, shot hard into the net, and fired a bottle of Bobrovsky goalkeeper.
The Finns grabbed the strings a lot, and after Alexander Ovskin’s offer, they scored another goal useful to man: the sharp shot was fired, he quickly hit the center of Ahu and dug inside, and scored his second goal, which is the third goal of his team.
The match was completely out of the hosts’ hands in the second half – and since the Russians “crept in” in vain in the third quarter (and eventually scored twice as many gates as the Finns), they didn’t even have a chance to recover. Finland held its lead with two goals, winning 3-1.
Hockey Tournament, semi-final
- Finland-Russia 3–1 (0-1, 3–0, 0-0)
- Canada-US 4–3 (2–0, 1-3, 1–0)
