Americans advance to WJC final

BOOM.

They don’t ask how, they ask how many.

A perfect round robin, a squeaky quarterfinal win and the tightest possible semi-final win?

Whatever the case, the Americans are headed to their first WJC Final since their gold medal win in 2013.

Russia goal. USA goal. Russia goal. USA goal. USA goal. Russia goal. Scoreless OT.

To say this game was a back-and-forth, balanced matchup would be the understatement of the year.

For the first time all tournament, the Americans found themselves trailing after Kirill Kaprazov opened the game’s scoring.

Colin White scored with just under a minute remaining in the first period to tie things up. The tie lasted all of 2:12.

9 minutes later, things were all square.

USA would take  the lead midway through the third…

Clayton Keller then ended up with a chance on a penalty shot to put the game out of reach. Losing control of the puck on his stick, Ilya Samsonov was able to hold off his efforts. Just 50 seconds later, Denis Guryanov popped in the equalizer. So we went to a scoreless overtime…

While it was a wild shootout, it takes just one look at the names and results to see exactly how the madness went down. Down to their last shot, Leafs prospect Jeremy Bracco tied things up 2-2 through the fifth round. 

Troy Terry, who scored the Americans’ first goal, returned in the 6th and 7th round to gift the Americans a 4-3 victory.

See you tomorrow night!