Canada’s ice hockey men are in the semi-finals of the Olympic tournament in Milan after a show of strength. The “Maple Leaves” defeated the Czech Republic 4-3 after extra time in the quarter-finals on Wednesday. Mitch Marner scored the decisive goal (62nd). The semi-final opponent is Olympic champion Finland, who defeated Switzerland 3-2 in overtime. The USA and Slovakia will contest the second semi-final. The US team beat Sweden 2:1 nV, the Slovaks beat Germany 6:2.
Macklin Celebrini put the Canadians in front early and as expected after a brilliant assist from Connor McDavid (4th). But the Czechs, who suffered a 5-0 defeat against the Canadian NHL stars at the start of the tournament, hit back: Lukas Sedlak equalized (9th), David Pastrnak put the underdogs in front in the power play (15th). In the middle third, Canada launched an attack, but lost captain Sidney Crosby after a body check that the 38-year-old took from two opponents. In the power play, Nathan MacKinnon made it 2-2 (33′).
The Czech Republic, led by keeper Lukas Dostal, also showed strong resistance in the final third and crowned it with a renewed lead on the counterattack by Ondrej Palat (53′). However, the underdog apparently had one too many players on the ice at this point, which neither the referees nor the Canadians noticed. The tournament favorite was now under a lot of pressure – and withstood it: Nick Suzuki unstoppably deflected a shot from Devon Toews to make it 3-3 (57th). In overtime, Marner shot Canada lucky after 72 seconds and a strong solo via “backhander”. The next opponent on Friday is the winner of Beijing 2022.
Finnish comeback
At first it didn’t look like a Finnish success. Damien Riat (15th) and Nino Niederreiter (16th) supposedly put Switzerland on the road to victory with a double strike within 72 seconds in the first third. The Finns bit their teeth on the Swiss defense for almost 54 minutes until they finally snapped and showed comeback qualities. Sebastian Aho scored the late goal (54th), and Miro Heiskanen equalized a minute before the end (59th). Therefore the cracks had to put in an extra shift in this game too. Here Artturi Lehkonen made the decision in a three-on-three game (64th).
The Americans also had to work “overtime” in a defensively strong, hard-fought game with the Swedes, but ultimately retained the upper hand. Dylan Larkin put the US team in front (32′), Mika Zibanejad equalized with a minute and a half to go (58′). In extra time, Quinn Hughes redeemed the US boys (64′). Now it’s also on Friday against Slovakia, who made short work of the Germans. Pavol Regenda (19th/41st), Milos Kelemen (25th), Oliver Okuliar (25th), Dalibor Dvorsky (31st) and Tomas Tatar (57th) ensured a clear victory.
Source: APA
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