Martin Rysavy and Team Czechia are going for gold, but they’ll have a tall order in front of them in order to bring home the top hardware.
The Moose Jaw Warriors forward and his teammates advanced to the championship game at the World Junior Hockey Championship with a 2-1 overtime victory over Sweden on Thursday afternoon in Halifax.
Their opponents in the title game will be none other than the hosts from Team Canada, who rolled to a 6-2 victory over the United States in the other semifinal.
Czechia trailed much of the contest after Sweden’s Ludvig Jansson scored 1:39 into the second period, with that 1-0 lead holding up until the final minute of regulation.
It was there that David Jiricek came through with the biggest goal of the tournament to that point for Czechia, wiring a one-timer that eluded Sweden goaltender Carl Lindbom with 40 seconds remaining and eventually sending the contest into overtime.
There, Czechia and Tri-City Americans goaltender Thomas Suchanek made a couple of outstanding saves -- one that trickled through his pads and stopped on the goalline -- before Jiri Kulich sent his crew to the final.
Kulich broke down the right wing, beat his man to the outside and went in alone on Lindbom, beating the netminder blocker side with a shot and touching off a raucous celebration in the Scotiabank Centre.
Rysavy finished the game with 23 shifts and 17:52 of ice time, getting off two shots on net and capping the contest plus-one.
The appearance in the gold medal final is the first for Czechia since their back-to-back championships in 2000 and 2001.
Canada, meanwhile, fell behind 2-0 in the first period but saw Connor Bedard get one back before the frame was out.
Turns out, that momentum would be crucial, as Logan Stankoven and Adam Fantilli scored in the first five minutes of the second before Joshua Roy made it a 4-2 Canada lead with just over eight minutes to play in the frame.
Brandt Clarke extended the edge to three goals midway through the second before Roy finished things off with an empty netter with 3:15 remaining.
The bronze medal game between Sweden and the U.S. is slated for 1:30 p.m. Moose Jaw time, with the gold medal contest dropping the puck at 5:30 p.m. You can follow along with the action on TSN and at www.iihf.com.
