Canada gets past Finland to play for men’s hockey gold
MILAN — Canada survived another close call in the Milano Cortina Olympic Games’ knockout phase Sunday, overcoming a two-goal deficit to Finland and securing a spot in Sunday’s gold-medal final in the game’s final minute with a Nathan MacKinnon power-play goal for a 3-2 victory.
The victory came two days after Canada twice trailed Czechia in the tournament quarterfinals, needing overtime before pulling out a 4-3 victory.
The Canadians will face the winner of Friday’s United States-Slovakia semifinal in the gold-medal game Sunday.
Finland’s Mikko Rantanen opened the scoring with 3:05 left in the opening period. The Finns then stretched their lead when Erik Haula scored a shorthanded goal on a breakaway.
Sam Reinhart finally got Team Canada on the board with 9:16 left in the second period and Shea Theodore tied the game at 2 with 9:26 left in regulation.
Canada appeared headed for overtime again before Finland’s Nikko Mikkula picked up a high sticking penalty.
MacKinnon then secured the victory, first-timing a Connor McDavid across ice pass into the back of the net with 35.2 seconds left. Finland challenged that the play was offsides but was unsuccessful.
Finland goalie Juuse Saros faced 39 shots, compared with 17 for Canada’s Jordan Binnington.
More to come on this story.