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American Run Ends in Overtime Defeat to Finland, 3-2

Halifax, NS- With Wednesday’s games in the books, there are now four teams remaining to battle it out for the IIHF World Championship. Unfortunately, none of these four teams have members of the Boston Bruins. Both of those countries were eliminated by heartbreaking 3-2 overtime losses. The Czech Republic fell to Sweden early in the first game of the day, while Team USA lost to Finland in the finale. In the middle, Canada blew out Norway 8-2, while Russia blanked Switzerland 6-0.

Sweden and the Czech Republic could not have played a closer game to begin the day. The contest was decided by an overtime goal, and the shots on net were tied at 31. The game stayed scoreless for over 27 minutes before Patric Hornqvist put Sweden ahead with a power play goal in the second period. The lead lasted for less than three minutes as Tomas Rolinek evened the score at 10:28. The game went to the third period knotted at one. At the 12:19 mark of the third, Sweden’s Jonas Frogren took down Radim Vrbata on a breakaway, leading to a penalty shot. Vrbata beat Henrik Lundqvist on the penalty shot to put the Czech Republic ahead 2-1. That lead lasted a mere 4:03 before Marcus Nilson came up with the equalizer to send the tilt into overtime. At 3:15 of overtime, a winner was decided. Mattias Weinhandl notched the game winning goal for Sweden from Anton Stralman and Marcus Nilson. Henrik Lundqvist stopped 29 of 31 shots in goal for Sweden in the win. Milan Hnilicka suffered the loss for the Czech Republic despite 28 saves on 31 shots. David Krejci did not play Wednesday for the Czech Republic.

For the second straight time, Team USA and Finland went down to the wire in a thrilling one-goal game. The scoring started 10:14 into the opening period when Tuomo Ruutu beat Robert Esche for a 1-0 Finland lead. The Fins took a 2-0 lead early in the second period as Janne Niskala scored just 21 seconds into a power play while Matt Greene was serving his high sticking minor. Trailing 2-0 heading into the third, Team USA was looking to come back just as Finland did the last time the two met. At the 15:44 mark of the third period, Boston’s Phil Kessel put the Americans on the board with a goal from Tim Gleason. 37 seconds later, the game was tied on a shorthanded goal by Drew Stafford. That sent the game 2-2 into overtime. 3:59 into the extra session, Finland came away with their second win over the United States. Saku Koivu won an offensive zone faceoff back to Sami Lepisto at the right point. Lepisto fired a shot through a screen and past Robert Esche for the winning goal. Esche was the busier of the two goalies, stopping 30 of the 33 shots he faced in the overtime loss. Niklas Backstrom was the winning netminder with 22 saves on 24 shots. Phil Kessel’s goal was his sixth of the tournament, and was his lone point of the night, despite three shots on goal in 16:47. Mark Stuart was held off of the scoresheet in 12:13 of ice time, but was solid in the defensive end as he was for the entire tournament.

Friday’s semifinal matches are now set. In the afternoon, Russia will face Finland. In the nightcap, it will be Canada and Sweden.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 11:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.