Moose Jaw Warriors forward Martin Rysavy and Team Czechia will be coming home with silver medals from the World Junior Hockey Championship.
But it wasn’t without giving tournament host Team Canada all sorts of trouble in front of a wild crowd in Halifax’s Scotiabank Centre.
Canada took a 2-0 lead into the third period, only to see Czechia score a pair to tie things up and send the game to overtime.
There, former Edmonton Oil Kings standout and current Arizona Coyotes forward Dylan Guenther would finish things off, giving Canada its second straight gold medal.
“I can’t believe it, I even forgot to take my gloves off, it doesn’t feel real, this is awesome,” an elated Guenther said on TSN shortly after scoring his championship winner. “We played so hard tonight, we played so well and this is a dream come true, it’s unbelievable… it has to be the best feeling ever.”
Canada looked like they had scored the first goal of the game midway through the first period when Connor Bedard appeared to have put home a shot from the point, but the play was ruled offside.
Three minutes later, Canada would get one that counted.
A holding penalty to David Jiricek put the powerful Team Canada power play to work, and they’d come through as the man advantage expired. Guenther did the honours, taking a feed to the top of the left face-off circle from Brandt Clarke (NHL Los Angeles) and one-timing a shot top corner blocker side on Czechia’s Thomas Suchanek (WHL Tri-City).
Rysavy himself had a great chance to tie the game with 2:50 remaining in the period when he was sprung on a breakaway, but Canada goaltender Thomas Milic (WHL Seattle) was able to get enough of the puck to send it into the corner.
Canada took a 1-0 lead out of the first period, but just over four minutes into the second, it was 2-0.
Team Canada captain Shane Wright -- celebrating his 19th birthday -- put together a brilliant individual effort by outduelling a pair of Czechia defenders along the boards, finding space to get off a backhand from the edge of the slot and beating Suchanek with a backhand short side.
The lead carried over into the third period, but Canada couldn’t make it hold, thanks to goals less than a minute apart late in the game.
Jiri Kuilich made it a one-goal game with 7:30 to play in the period, and 54 seconds later, Jakub Kos made it a 2-2 game, thanks to a redirection that deflected off a Canadian defender and past Milic. Rysavy was on the ice for goal and picked up a plus.
That all set the stage for overtime, and Guenther’s heroics.
Clarke created a turnover and fed the puck up to Guenther, who would go in on a two-on-one with Joshua Roy. A slick give-and-go around a sliding Czechia defender, and the former Edmonton Oil Kings standout made no mistake, putting the return feed from Roy home at 6:22 of the extra period.
Rysavy saw a total of 25 shifts and played 15:39, getting off two shots on net. He’d finish the tournament with a goal and three points and a plus-two plus-minus.
Milic finished with 24 saves in the win, Suchanek stopped 35 shots in taking the loss.
