Gold for Team Canada after 3-2 OT win over Finland
CTV
Canada has won gold at the world junior hockey championship, downing Finland 3-2 in three-on-three overtime.
It took until the late stages of Saturday's gold-medal game, but Canada finally faced adversity at the World Junior Hockey Championship.
After blowing a two-goal lead to the Finns, Kent Johnson came to the rescue. At 3:20 of overtime, Johnson tucked home the rebound from his own shot to give Canada a 3-2 win and the gold medal.
Coming into the third, Canada held a 2-0 lead, but the Finns roared back to tie the game in front of 13,327 fans at Rogers Place. After being credited with just 13 shots over the first two periods, the Finns launched 17 shots on net in the third, and got goals from Aleksi Heimosalmi and Joakim Kemell to send the game to overtime.
The Canadians had plenty of chances to bury the Finns, but went 0-for-6 on the power play in regulation.
Canada also got goals from Joshua Roy and William Dufour. With two assists in the game, Mason McTavish finished as the tournament's top scorer, with eight goals and nine assists. He was named tournament MVP.
But McTavish's finest moment might not have been a goal or assist, but clearing what looked to be a tournament-winning effort from Topi Niemela off the goal line just seconds before Johnson notched the deciding goal.
From the group stage to the elimination round, Canada's smallest margin of victory was three. But the gold-medal game against Finland marked a new type of challenge for the Canadians, as the opposition went into a defensive shell right from the opening faceoff.
