The Chicago Blackhawks had a handful of players eliminated from the IIHF World Championships on Thursday.
Early in the IIHF World Championships, Chicago Blackhawks forward Teuvo Teravainen was ruled out for the rest of the tournament due to an injury. On Thursday, his Finnish teammates defeated Czechia 4-1 to advance to the semi-final.
At the same time, a younger edition of Team USA took on a veteran-filled Team Canada. It was going to be an uphill climb for the Americans this time, but they gave Canada everything they could.
Although they didn't score a goal in a 4-0 loss, Team USA created chances of the high-danger variety at a high rate, only to be stopped by Canadian goalie Jet Greaves.
With this elimination, the tournament ends for four Chicago Blackhawks players. Drew Commesso, Wyatt Kaiser, Sam Lafferty, and Oliver Moore are all done.
Commesso went to the tournament knowing he would be the third-string goalie who doesn't dress, but it was a great experience for him to be around an event like that, knowing he had to be ready for whenever he may be needed.
Kaiser was scratched for the second straight game on Thursday, but it was valuable for him to see the ice earlier in the tournament against some really great players. He took some big strides in the NHL regular season, and this only furthered his development.
Oliver Moore and Sam Lafferty were dressed in the loss to Canada, but neither of them was able to find the scoresheet. They weren't on the team to be top offensive producers, but they would like to contribute more than they did.
That is especially true for Moore, who will be relied on by Chicago to use his speed to create offense in bunches. However, penalty killing and defending are strengths of his, which he was able to work on throughout his time in Switzerland playing for Team USA.
The loss to Canada was 4-0 on the scoreboard, but it was a 2-0 game thanks to goals by Macklin Celebrini and Dylan Holloway before Connor Brown and Sidney Crosby added empty-net goals. Both goalies, Jet Greaves and Devin Cooley, were outstanding. So much so that they were each named their respective team's player of the game.
With this victory, Canada moves on to the semi-finals, which will begin on Saturday. No matter what, they will play for a medal on Sunday. 4 of the last 10 Golds have been claimed by Canada.
That's also five wins in their last six for Canada over the United States at the World Championships, just a few months after losing the Gold Medal Game in the Olympics.
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