Despite having a terrible start to the 2021 IIHF Men’s World Championships, Team Canada found their way to the gold medal game and miraculously, won. Canada beat the US on Saturday before topping Finland in overtime on Sunday to cap off their tournament.
Canada won the gold medal, Finland silver and the United States bronze. In case you missed it, here’s how it all went down:
Mikael Ruohomaa opened the scoring for Finland in the first period, but Maxime Comtois tied the game early in the second period. After Petteri Lindbohm regained the lead for his team early in the third, Adam Henrique scored the equalizer with just under eight minutes left in regulation.
Ottawa Senators teammates Nick Paul and Connor Brown combined for the overtime, gold-medal winning tally, 6:26 into the extra frame. Darcy Kuemper recorded 29 saves.
Buffalo Sabres defenseman Colin Miller, of course, missed the game due to an injury that previously ended his tournament. On the other side, Arttu Ruotsalainen recorded three shots on goal and two penalty minutes and skated 19:45 as he & Finland won silver.
Earlier in the day, the United States and Tage Thompson defeated Germany – with Tobias Rieder and JJ Peterka – by a score of 6-1 to capture bronze. The Americans put up a four-goal second period, and Thompson recorded three assists, en route to the victory.
Christian Wolanin, Conor Garland, Jack Drury, Jason Robertson, Trevor Moore & Ryan Donato all scored for the US, while Dominik Bittner had the lone goal for Germany.
In addition to his three assists, Thompson recorded two shots on goal. He finished the game a plus-1 and skated 13:15. Rieder played 12:59 and was a minus-2, while Peterka skated 15:37 and finished the game a minus-1.
Connor Brown led the tournament with 16 points, including 14 assists, in 10 games. Conor Garland had 13 points (6-7) while Andrew Mangiapane recorded 11 points in just 7 games.
Here’s the final stat lines for the Buffalo Sabres-relevant players at the IIHF Worlds:
Tobias Rieder: 10 games played, 1-3-4, +1, 20 SOG, 14:52 avg. ice time/game
JJ Peterka: 6 games played, 1-0-1, -2, 5 SOG, 11:44 avg. ice time/game
Colin Miller: 4 games played, 0-1-1, -1, 14 SOG, 18:17 avg. ice time/game
Lawrence Pilut: 7 games played, 0-2-2, +2, 6 SOG, 17:53 avg. ice time/game
Victor Olofsson: 7 games played, 3-1-4, 0, 20 SOG, 16:47 avg. ice time/game
Arttu Ruotsalainen: 10 games played, 4-1-5, +3, 27 SOG, 16:22 avg. ice time/game
Tage Thompson: 8 games played, 1-4-5, -1, 26 SOG, 14:08 avg. ice time/game