Battle of Calgary

After the quarter-final game against Czech Republic the Russian team lost forward Ivan Telegin who suffered a hand injury. There were no other changes in teams line-ups.

It was expected that Canada began the game more active. Russia since the first minutes showed that they will try more body and physical play. At 00:31 Artyom Sergeyev cleaned the goalie zone with a hit against Boone Jenner. The first power-play happened in the fourth minute when Tanner Pearson played with a high stick near the Russian bench and got two minutes. Russia managed to make three shots, all were stopped by Scott Wedgewood.

In a fast attack Yevgeny Kuznetsov gave a pass to Nail Yakupov who was on the blue line and got a back pass to open the scoring with a one-timer at 07:26. 2 minutes later Ryan Strome misfired from a promising situation. Soon Canada got its first power-play chance and Vasilevsky made a great left leg save on Scott Harrington's lob shot.

Tanner Pearson's second penalty helped Russia to make 2-0 with a Nikita Nesterov slap shot after a pass from Grigory Zheldakov. Seconds after the goal Russia took a penalty again Artyom Sergeyev got two minutes for hooking. 46 seconds later the officials didn't notice that Pearson blow on Vasilevsky's head but saw how the Russian goalie answered his offender and gave him two minutes. The last minutes were full of roughness and the game went the way everyone wanted to see.

The debut of the second was the same as the first, only the crossbar helped Russia to not concede a goal in first minutes, but even Vasilevsky couldn't help when Brett Connolly fired a shot under the crossbar at 22:37. But the Russians weren't disappointed Alexander Khokhlachyov fed a pass to Yevgeny Kuznetsov who with a beautiful wrist shot made it 3-1.

At 28:48 Nail Yakupov dished a pass to Kuznetsov who found himself in front of Wedgewood to make a hat-trick in this game and send the Canadian goalie to the bench.
2 minutes later Khokhlachyov got a pass behind the net from Kuznetsov to make it 5-1 in power-play.

The Canadians couldn't cope with their emotions. Boone Jenner speared Russian captain Yevgeny Kuznetsov and got a game misconduct penalty after being hit by Ildar Isangulov. Another misconduct penalty Jonathan Huberdeau got after hitting the board.

After two periods Canada outshot Russia 35-18, got 45 penalty minutes and trailed 5-1. Can you believe it?

Early in the third Canada began to play more dirty, it was so weird how Brett Connolly could avoid a game misconduct after hitting Danil Apalkov.
A nice save by Vasilevsky in the last minute of penalty-killing and Ignat Zemchenko went from the box and organized the sixth goal. Nikita Kucherov touched a puck to the empty net at 47:54.

Dougie Hamilton managed to cut the Russian lead in a power-play after a nice pass from Mark Scheifele at 49:20. 23 seconds later Canada scored again with a ricochet from Grigory Zheldakov's skate. The Canadian who sent a puck to this skate was Jaden Schwartz. With 8 minutes left Brendan Gallagher made it 4-6 playing as the screen in front of Andrei Vasilevsky. Brendan Gormley with a blue line shot cut the Russian lead to 1-goal and sent Vasilevsky to the bench. Canada pulls the goalie and Ryan Strome hits the post, goalie Andrei Makarov saved a rebound attempt. Russia denied all other last minutes attempts and went to the final to face Sweden in two days.

 

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