The medal games are set at the 2021 IIHF World Hockey Championship. It will be Canada and Finland playing, again, for the gold medal and the United States and Germany playing for the bronze.
In the semifinals, today, the US and Canada played and Finland faced Germany.
The USA got Canada at a bad time. Canada was really gelling as a team and coming into their own after a rough start to the tournament.
Canada defeated the Americans 4-2. Brandon Pirri got the Canadians on the board 2:02 into the game, getting assists from Sean Walker and Nick Paul.
Canada had the 1-0 lead. However, before the first period was up, Colin Blackwell would get the Americans on the board and the game tied. He scored at 17:17 of the first and got assists from Christian Wolanin and Kevin Labanc.
In a game of back-and-forth, it was Andrew Mangiapane who was the difference for Canada.
Mangiapane scored 4:15 into the second period to put Canada up 2-1. The lone helper on the goal came from Connor Brown. He then scored again 46 seconds into the third to grab an insurance goal for Canada. Brown and Canadian goaltender Darcy Kuemper had the assists.
The USA would get one more when Sasha Chmelevski scored from Kevin Rooney and Connor Mackey at 3:36. That made it 3-2 and allowed the Americans to pull goalie Cal Petersen with about 2:30 to go in the game.
However, Justin Danforth scored into the empty net for Canada (Paul getting the helper) and the Canadians doubled their lead to 4-2 with 24 seconds to play.
Canada had gotten the win and the right to play for the gold medal. The US suffered their first loss in nine games and will now play for the bronze.
Matt Tennyson played 21:28 of ice time while Matt Hellickson did not play.
Finland edged by Germany 2-1 off the strength of two Finnish goals in the first period. Iiro Pakarinen and Hannes Bjorninen were the goal scorers.
Germany tacked one on in the second period from Matthias Plachta, but the Finns held on to win the game and will now face Canada in the gold medal game. Germany, with the loss, will face the Americans for the bronze.
The medal games will happen tomorrow, both at Arena Riga, as the semifinals were.