WC-2015. Canada - Russia

WC-2015. Canada - Russia - 6:1

18 May 2015

Russia faced Canada today in the 2015 IIHF World Championship final in Prague, the Czech Republic. This match was creating headlines all over the world with these two ice hockey superpowers going head to head, and following the 4:0 semifinal win against the USA Russian coach Oleg Znarok kept the team the same. Sergei Bobrovsky’s opponent in the Canadian net was Mike Smith.

The Canadians always love to come out hard, and that’s exactly what they did. Playing at an incredible pace they barely let the Russians out of their own zone, and only Sergei Bobrovsky stopped them from running away from it. The puck time from time bounced around Russia’s crease, and some fancy Sidney Crosby feeds into the danger zone were being excellently stopped. The chances were coming constantly, and on a mad goalmouth scramble Sergei made two amazing saves before his bar was brushed. There was a feeling that a goal was coming, and after the left post was smacked it arrived. Tyler Ennis twisted by the right boards, and after a sharp deflection off Cody Eakin the puck found its way in. Russia only had five shots on target during the period, however Alexander Ovechkin and Sergey Mozyakin wasted promising opportunities up close.

It didn’t get any better for Russia in the second frame, as they were simply blown away. Just two minutes in Tyler Ennis powered glove side for a wraparound, and caught Sergei Bobrovsky out. That seemed to be a knockout blow for the Russians, and the goals began to fly in. Sidney Crosby wristed high into the right corner when alone on the doorstep, and Tyler Seguin tapped in when crashing down to the slot. Oleg Znarok took a well needed timeout after that, but it didn’t seem to work as Tyler Seguin hit the bar when all alone at point blank range. For all their efforts Russia simply couldn’t create a thing, and Mike Smith had only one save to make during those twenty minutes.

The third period didn’t offer a lot of hope for the Russians, and they really did fall apart. With Viktor Tikhonov in the penalty box Claude Giroux made no mistake on his own by the left hand stick, and Nathan Mackinnon’s drive from distance was too hot for Sergei Bobrovsky to handle. It was threatening to get out of hand, although Russia did get on the board. Sergey Mozyakin wound up at the blue line, and Yevgeni Malkin cleverly tipped. Anton Belov could have even made things interesting late on, but his one timer was gloved sharply by Mike Smith. That brought an end to the action, as Canada beat Russia 6:1 to leave the Russians with silver medals from the 2015 IIHF World Championship.

Match protocol:

Canada – Russia – 6:1 (1:0, 3:0, 2:1)

Goals:

1:0 Eakin (Ennis), 18.10

2:0 Ennis (Eakin, Couturier), 21.56

3:0 Crosby (Eberle, Hamuis), 27.22

4:0 Seguin (Giroux, Barrie), 28.06

5:0 Giroux (Crosby, O’Reilly), 48.58

6:0 Mackinnon (Savard), 49.50

6:1 Malkin (Mozyakin, Kulikov), 52.47

Goalkeepers: Smith – Bobrovsky

Shots on target: 37 – 12