Galchenyuk’s shootout double wins USA the bronze

"It's big. It's great for our country to get a medal here", USA's TJ Oshie said about winning the bronze medals.

Oshie receives the bronze medal.  Photo: Michal Eger

"It's one of the toughets things you can do in hockey. We lost our dream yesterday." Finland's captain Lasse Kukkonen said about playing a bronze medal game the day after losing a semi final. And even if Kukkonen said that Finland gave everything they had it didn't really felt that way in the first period with low intensity from the Finns.

That allowed the USA to take control from the start and after winning the first faceoff they had a long attack before Craig Smith opened the scoring already after 58 seconds. Finland failed to clear the puck and after some short passes near the goal Smith was alone with Raanta and beat him with a deke. USA double the lead one the only power play of the entire game when Paul Stastny found the net with a low shot from the slot, David Moss doing a good job of disturbing in front of Raanta.

But the longer the game went after 2-0 Finland took over more and more of the game, mostly lead by Mikael Granlund who was the best player on the ice. And finally after over five periods without scoring in the Globe, Lauri Korpikoski deflected a shot from Väänänen for 1-2 a play set ut by Granlund. A few minutes later Granlund made another great move in the corner, fooling the US defence and moving on goal and Korpikorski got his second goal in a few mintues from close range.

Granlund made Gibson work hard. Photo: Michal Eger

"They had the momentum from the second half of the second period", USA's Tim Stapleton said after the game.

The pressure had paid off but after the goals the US came back into the game and had some chances for the winner but it went to overtime where Pesonen had the best chance but as so many times for Finland in this game his shot with 45 seconds left was wide.

Granlund was great but missed his "Forsberg" penalty shot. Photo: Michal Eger

The game went to a shootout were Finland took the lead but two goals from Alex Galchenyuk turned it around and won the bronze for USA.

The game winning shot. Photo: Michal Eger

Finland's Teemu Laakso wasn't too dissappointed. "We played a good tournament even if it ended up this way. We were underdogs because noone in Finland expected anyhing from us". About playing the bronze game he said "For me it wasn't so hard I was excited to play this game. But we weren't ready in the first and the USA got a couple of goals". Laakso was pleased with how his team came back and tied it but said "It was hard to lose in the shootout after playing so good".

Tim Stapleton, the only European based player on the US roster was very glad for winning the bronze medal "Obviously it's a great accomplishment for us. Great to go here and win a medal. I'm very proud to be a part of this team", he said after the game with the medal around his neck.

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