A third-period goal by Adam Fantilli was the difference in Canada’s 3-2 win over Latvia in the semi-finals of the World Hockey Championship in Tampere, Finland.
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In the final, Canada will face the winner of the duel between the United States and Germany, which is scheduled to take place later on Saturday.
Well challenged by the surprising Latvians in the first two periods, Canada stepped on the accelerator in the third period, taking advantage of successes from Jack Quinn and Fantilli to take the lead definitively, before seeing Scott Laughton complete the scoring in a net desert.
“Last Thursday [durant le match de quarts de finale contre la Finlande] we didn’t allow the crowd to get involved. But today they took the lead twice and the atmosphere was difficult for us, defender Tyler Myers admitted, according to the IIHF website.
“But we didn’t give up. I give our team a lot of credit for the way we played in the third period. We told each other to stay calm; there was no reason to play on the heels. We focused on the task at hand.”
In Locmelis and Rudolfs Balcers scored the Latvian nets. Quebec’s Samuel Blais scored Canada’s other goal, his second in two games.
His compatriot Samuel Montembeault once again looked good in front of the maple leaf net, making 20 saves. At the other end of the rink, Arturs Silovs saved 32 pucks.
According to the latter, whose excellent performance against the Swedes allowed his team to reach the semi-finals, the story would have been different if the match had taken place in Riga.
“The crowd wasn’t bad here either,” he said. Several of our supporters came to support us. We tried to meet their expectations, but failed. We will try to succeed tomorrow [dimanche]. It’s the last game of the season, so we have to leave everything on the table and see what happens.”
The final and the bronze medal game will take place on Sunday.