The 2023 World Juniors Gold Medal Game Is Officially Set
The 2022-23 World Juniors have been absolutely incredible. We have seen impressive goals, big hits, and outstanding saves made all throughout.
NHL teams have a lot of players playing there in addition to players eligible for the 2023 NHL Draft. These are all players that are hoping to make a significant impact on the league one day.
The tournament started with ten different countries looking to make some noise but we are officially down to two.
In order to get down to two, there had to be the semi-finals. Team Sweden took on Team Czech and Team USA took on Team Canada. It was an outstanding round.
The World Juniors Gold Medal Game matchup is officially set.
Sweden vs Czech
The World Juniors first semi-final game that took place on Wednesday came between Team Sweden and Team Czech. This was a big game, as one of the two was going to move on to take on one of the tournament favorites in the Gold Medal game.
Sweden took the lead thanks to a goal scored by Ludvig Jansson. From there, it looked like Sweden would run away with it, but that couldn’t have been further from correct. In fact, nobody was able to run away with it.
Czech tied the game in the final minute of the second period on a goal scored by David Jiricek. Nobody scored in the third period, so the game was forced to go to overtime with a berth in the Gold Medal Game on the line.
Jiri Kulich scored for the Czech in overtime to give them the 2-1 win. It has been a sensational tournament for this group, and they then were awaiting the winner of the USA and Canada for their Gold Medal opponent.
USA vs Canada
One of the more anticipated matchups for this World Juniors (or any international hockey tournament) is the United States of America vs Canada.
The United States went up 2-0 early thanks to goals by Logan Cooley and Kenny Connors. Not long after that, however, Connor Bedard scored to get Canada on the board. Within a minute of the second period, Logan Stankoven scored to tie the game up at two.
About five minutes of the game clock later, Adam Fantilli scored to give the Canadians the lead for the first and final time. Despite a comeback attempt by Team USA that included two goals waved off by controversial goaltender interference calls, Canada went on to win 6-2.
Canada is now headed to the Gold Medal Game where they will face the Czech group that beat them during the group play by a final score of 5-2.
Gold Medal Game
Yes, the Czech team won that game against Canada on December 26th. It was the first game for either team in the tournament.
Shane Wright scored in that game to make it 1-0 Canada but the Czech took over with three unanswered goals before taking the 5-2 victory. Canada tried to play a little bit too fancy of a game in that one and was humbled. They have since buckled down and figured it out.
The Czechs play a good honest game all the time and that is why they are where they are. For Canada to win, they will need their super-skilled players like Connor Bedard, Shane Wright, and Adam Fantilli, amongst others, to have amazing games.
This tournament, as mentioned before, has been so wonderful. These two teams having a rematch to finish it up will be a great way to send it off.
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Team USA will play Team Sweden in the Bronze Medal Game which should be incredible as well. Both of those hockey countries should be proud of their boys as well as every other team that competed in 2022-23.