Canada's 3-2 rally past Finland sets up 4 Nations final rematch with USA, which rolled past upset-minded Slovakia
Jordan Binnington and Colton Parayko are hunting for gold; Dalibor Dvorsky's dream journey to gold has come to a halt.
The three St. Louis Blues remaining in the semifinals of the men's hockey tournament of the Milano Cortina Olympics on Friday and it will be a rematch of the 4 Nations Face-Off for the gold.
In the opener, Canada rallied from a two-goal deficit when Nathan MacKinnon (Colorado Avalanche) scored a power-play goal with 35.3 seconds remaining in a breath-taking 3-2 win by the tournament's top seed at Santagiulia IHO Arena.
And in the nightcap, second-seeded USA made it unanimous for the projected final heading into the tournament when the Americans took down the upset-minded and third-seeded Slovaks, 6-2 to set up a Sunday gold medal game with Canada.
Binnington made 15 saves in the game and for those looking at stats (again) instead of watching the game, Finland wasn't just limited to 17 shots in the game, a number of them were high-quality opportunities, and in another example of making a crucial save at a critical juncture of the game, Binnington stopped a point blank opportunity on Anton Lundell (Florida Panthers) early in the third period of a 2-1 game. If it goes to 3-1 there, the stingy Finns are likely to close that game out and pull the upset.
It goes along with the breakaway saves on Martin Necas (Avalanche) with 1:10 left in the third period and one-time stop on Radim Simek in overtime of a 4-3 win over Czechia in the quarterfinal on Wednesday.
"Me and 'Schenner' were talking the other day, he probably has the most pressure out of anybody in this tournament to perform," Blues forward Jake Neighbours said of Binningon. "But that's what he's built for, man. That's what he craves and wants. He wants that pressure, he wants big moments."
Parayko again didn't factor in the scoring and was even at plus-minus in 15:12 of ice time.
They will face St. Louisans Matthew Tkachuk (Florida Panthers), Brady Tkachuk (Ottawa Senators), Clayton Keller (Utah Mammoth) and the Americans, who easily had their way with Dvorsky and Slovakia, which defied the odds by reaching the semifinal round.
Dvorsky, who came into the game with six points (three goals, three assists) in four games, including a goal and assist in a 6-2 quarterfinal win over Germany, had two shots on goal and was a minus-1 in 16:29 of ice time.
St. Louis Blues center Dalibor Dvorsky (15) and Slovakia's Olympic dream for gold came to a screeching halt on Friday against the United States. (James Lang-Imagn Images)So Slovakia and Finland will play for the bronze medal on Saturday at 1:40 p.m. (CT) and the USA-Canada gold medal matchup, a rematch of Canada's 3-2 overtime championship win in the 4 Nationals Final, will be played Sunday at 7:10 a.m.
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