Canada Goes for Gold after defeating USA in Semifinals 2016 IIHF World Championship

Canada goes for gold on Sunday at the 2016 IIHF World Championship after defeating the United States 4-3 in Saturday’s semifinal.

Three U.S. goals in the first half of the second period dashed Canada’s early game lead, and the red-and-white found itself trailing by one; Derick Brassard (Hull, Que./New York Rangers, NHL) tied it up on the power-play.

Ryan Ellis (Freelton, Ont./Nashville, NHL), who joined Team Canada less than a week ago, scored the game-winner at 1:34 in the third, and the team held on to punch its ticket to the final, where they’ll seek to win two consecutive gold medals for the first time in decades.

Cam Talbot (Caledonia, Ont./Edmonton, NHL) made 30 saves; Brendan Gallagher (Tsawwassen, B.C./Montreal, NHL) and Brad Marchand (Hammonds Plains, N.S./Boston, NHL) netted Canada’s two first-period goals.

Canada goes for gold against Finland on Sunday at 1:45 p.m. ET.

“We’re a bit younger, and we show it at times, but our discipline and our teamwork together and our talent takes over a lot of the time and I think it did tonight. That’s why we got the win.” – Matt Duchene comparing last year’s team to this year’s.

Connor McDavid (Newmarket, Ont./Edmonton, NHL), who tallied his eight assist of the tournament on Ellis’ goal, on the previous match-up with Finland and how to prepare for Sunday says “[In the preliminary round] they capitalized on our mistakes. We had a couple turnovers that just can’t happen, and the puck ended up at the back of our net, and that’s the game. We’ll limit those and other than that, I think we played a really good game against them. Obviously it wasn’t the outcome we wanted but we learned a lot.”

Since 1931, Canada has won the world championship 19 times – not counting the years when Olympic Winter Games gold-medallists were also considered world champions. The country has also collected 11 silver medals and six bronze in that timespan.

Team USA will  face Russia in Bronze Medal Game at 9:15 a.m. ET Sunday.