The star-studded Canadian team came to Milan with one goal: win more gold.
As expected, they won all three games in the group, one of them against their quarter-final opponents, the Czech Republic. Canada then easily won 5-0 against the Czech Republic, who didn’t look particularly harmonious.
Since the Czech Republic finished third in their group, they had to face Denmark in the round of 16. Although they won, albeit with some difficulty, they were unable to convince here either.
Then it was time for Wednesday’s quarterfinals, and then a completely different Czech Republic took the ice.
Not even that The fact that Canada’s 19-year-old star Macklin Celebrini gave his team a 1-0 lead after just three minutes made them hang their heads. Instead, both equalized and took a 2-1 lead before the end of the first period.
However, when Canada had to play with one more man at the start of the second period, the Czechs couldn’t resist and Nathan MacKinnon equalized to make it 2-2.
Canada continued to push in the middle period, the tempo was incredibly high, but Czech goalkeeper Lukas Dostal played big.
On the hunt After a winning goal, Canada had to do without its team captain Sidney Crosby, who was injured at the start of the second period.
In the third period, the Czech Republic did a better job of slowing down Canada’s pace and then counterattack opportunities arose.
With barely eight minutes left in the third period, they made sure to take advantage of a minute. Ondrej Palat put the Czech Republic back in the lead with a score of 3-2.
The pressure on Canada was enormous. An elimination in the quarter-finals would have been a gigantic fiasco for the proud ice hockey nation.
With three and half a minute before the end of regular time, Canada equalized to 3-3. That was the final score after regular time and a three-on-three extra time awaited.
The Czech Republic started the best, but Canadian goalkeeper Jordan Binnington responded with two really tough saves to give Mitch Marner the chance to secure a place in the semi-finals.
With the 4-3 win, Canada is ready for the semi-finals. If Sweden wins the quarterfinals against the USA tonight, Sweden will face Canada in the semifinals.
