World Juniors: Canada Flips Script on Russia, Wins Another Gold

Think of international hockey's World Junior Championships as the sport's bowl season.

The only real differences are:

• Their U20s are playing for their country as opposed to, say, their college,
• Their players are either NHL draft picks or top draft prospects.
• Their holiday tournament lasts 10-or-so days, so
• Their teams have a shot at revenge and/or redemption right then and there.

 

That's been happening to Sweden every damn year for the past 13 years.

Dudes roll everyone up in pool play -- Tre Kronorna have now won 52 straight pool-play games -- and then someone comes back to bite them in bracket play. In that time span, they've won exactly one gold medal, five silvers, and two bronzes.

That can get rather frustrating, but if you're Lias Andersson two WJCs ago ...

 

... you can also use it to flash a bitta snark:

 

Then there are the perpetual gold medal favorites who actually do rack up the successes:

• Canada's tally stands at 18 gold, 9 silver, and 5 bronze.
• Russia's totals in its various incarnations -- Soviets, CIS, Russia -- are 13 gold, 13 silver, and 11 bronze.

Coming into this year's event, though, the Russians hadn't reached the top podium since 2011, and they were primed to stop the skid.

 

If it wasn't for the latest crew of feisty Canadians and a remote TV camera, they mighta done it instead of dropping a come-from-ahead 4-3 defeat that added to their collection of silvers.

The Russians set their sights on sending a message to Canada and did so in pool play, throttling one of the youngest squads ever to represent the Great White North, 6-0:

 

Of course, since Hockey Canada is a source of intense national pride, this beatdown didn't set very well, at all.

 

So much so, in fact, that team captain Barrett Hayton wasn't gonna let a shoulder injury suffered in their 5-0 semi-final triumph against Finland surprised everyone as Canadians often do ...

 

... and was determined to be more than an El Cid 2.0 in the gold medal game.

The Arizona Coyotes top draft choice in 2018 did all of that, being named the game's MVP for, among other things, ripping the goal that leveled matters late in the game:

 

The tourney's bizarro moment happened after Canada took their 4-3 lead.

Dudes were on a penalty kill in the waning minutes when an errant zone clear rose above the boards, seemingly on its way into the stands and creating a 5-on-3 power play for Russia.

However ...

 

Maybe the officials didn't have that angle, but the linesman was pretty damn sure what he saw and made the two minutes gesture right then and there.

The referees, though, went all rule book on it:

 

Believe it or not, this happened in the NHL two seasons ago, and the officials ruled the same way:

 

Canadian fans were cool with the decision:

 

 

St Louis Blues draftee Joel Hofer's been standing on his head for most of this tournament, so there's no guarantee the Russians woulda capitalized on a two-man advantage.

 

But now, we'll never know.

 

And so it goes for Russia's recent WJC fortunes.

 

And what else is new for the Great White North?