For the second time in three tournaments, Finland has won gold at the men’s World Hockey Championship after beating Canada 4-3 in overtime.
Finland secured its fourth World Championship gold and second in the past four tournaments, with both of those coming against Canada. Finland now has 16 medals in tournament history and three in a row after losing to Canada in 2021.
Finland is the first team since Sweden in 2006 to win gold in the men’s Olympic and World Championship tournaments in the same year, with 15 players winning double gold.
After a scoreless first period, Dylan Cozens’ power-play goal in the second period made it 1-0 in what was shaping up to be a tight end to the finish.
The drama took a whole other notch in the third period. At 44:08, with Noah Gregor already in the box, Cole Sillinger was given a high-sticking penalty after Finland’s Miro Heiskanen hit his own face with his own stick.
Five seconds into power play, Heiskanen’s shot bounced off the back boards and Mikael Granlund was there to score on the doorstep on the two-man advantage. Chris Driedger, Canada’s starting goalie, was injured on the play and was replaced by Matt Tomkins, Canada’s goalie at the Olympics that hadn’t seen any World Championship action until getting called in for the third.
With Canada still down a man, Granlund’s shot beat Tomkins over the glove and gave Finland the 2-1 lead at 45:57. Joel Armia scored with around five minutes to go to make it 3-1, but Zach Whitecloud answered back with over two minutes to go to cut the lead back to one goal.
With time running out, Canada forced overtime. Maxime Comtois scored with the net empty at 58:36, taking Mathew Barzal’s pass in the slot in front to tie the game and force 3-on-3 overtime. In the extra frame, Saku Manninen scored his fifth power-play goal of the tournament to win the game, giving Finland double gold.
Czechia won bronze earlier in the day with a comeback 8-4 effort over the United States.
