The bronze-medal game on Sunday will be played between two teams that suffered their first losses of the tournament in Saturday’s semifinals – first Sweden at the hands of the host Czechs, and then Canada in a heartbreaking shootout loss to Switzerland.
“It sucks,” said forward Andrew Mangiapane. “We came here to win gold and we were right there tonight. Losing in the shootout is a tough way to lose.”
“They got two power-play goals at the start,” said winger Michael Bunting. “That’s really what it came down to. I thought 5-on-5 we dominated. It sucks that it comes down to a skills competition at the end there but that’s the way it’s always been. We have to give credit to the Swiss – they played a great game.”
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“We didn’t have the best start and we just kinda dug ourselves a hole that we couldn’t get out of,” said Mangiapane.
“They’re a high-offense kind of team and I thought we were able to shut that down 5-on-5 but they’re really reliable in the D zone and they lay out for everything,” Bunting said about the Swiss.
Each team had a power play in overtime, which led to extended 4-on-4 play after they expired until the next whistle. Asked whether more 3-on-3 play in overtime would have favored Canada, Bunting replied, “I don’t know. It’s all done with now so I don’t know how to answer that … 4-on-4, 3-on-3, it doesn’t matter.”
As for the bronze-medal game against Sweden, Bunting said, “We’ve got to approach it like any other game and obviously, we want to win. It sucks that we’re not playing for gold but now we want to win bronze, so we have to go in with the right mindset.”
“We’ve just gotta be ready to play,” said Mangiapane. “Obviously, Sweden’s got a great team with a lot of NHLers so we’ve gotta go out there, play our game – play Canada hockey.”