U-18 World Championship: Canada Beats USA for Gold in Dramatic Affair, Sweden Takes Bronze

Gavin McKenna Photo by Randy Feere

The U-18 World Championship has come to an end, and we saw two solid games in the medal rounds to finish it all off.

The day started as Slovakia and Sweden battled it out for the bronze medal. Despite the final score of 4-0, this game was much tighter than the score would indicate.

In the gold medal game, we saw the Canada-USA rivalry add another chapter in a back-and-forth game, with Canada coming out on top.

Canada Come Back Against the Rival Americans for U-18 Supremacy

What an exciting finale to the Under-18 World Championship. This was a back-and-forth tilt, with both teams taking momentum at different times and plenty of action throughout the game. We saw records broken, heroic performances, a major penalty that swung the game and drama that lasted until the final moments.

The Americans were favored coming into the game, and they got off to a solid start. They dictated play for much of the game, showing the kind of cohesion and chemistry that we’ve become accustomed to with the USA Hockey National Team Development Program.

With the first period coming to an end, Christian Humphreys opened the scoring on a hard-working play where he came out of the corner and jammed it in at the side of the net. After one period, the Americans were up a goal while controlling play for the most part.

The second period was when we saw things open up on both sides, and we had some fun sequences of trading chances.

Ryder Ritchie got the Canadians on the board early in the second frame, bursting up ice with speed, getting a breakout pass from Matthew Schaefer in stride and then attacking the goalie with speed. Ritchie had a little shimmy before finding some space and beating the American goaltender.

The Americans wouldn’t let the game stay tied for too long, as Cole Eiserman took advantage of a power play to put the Americans back in front. The goal was also the 127th of Eiserman’s NTDP career, surpassing Cole Caufield for the all-time goal-scoring record in the program’s history.

The classic one-time bomb that Eiserman has become known for gave the Americans momentum once again.

It wasn’t long before the Americans extended the lead on a great play by Cole Hutson to join the rush right as he came in off the bench. He hammered a seam pass into the back of the net to give the Americans a 3-1 lead.

Hutson took a penalty a minute later, and Canada was on the power play with a chance to pull within one. They did exactly that.

Gavin McKenna, Canada’s best player at the tournament, showed off his nifty hands, walking along the goal line with the puck before scoring on a slick backhander.

McKenna’s heroism was just beginning, but he couldn’t have done anything that he did if goaltender Carter George hadn’t kept them in the game on several occasions.

He made a number of massive saves, but none was more effective in the moment than the highlight-reel stick save he made on tournament MVP James Hagens to keep Canada within a goal late in the second period. Simply put, he saved Canada in that moment.

With Canada building some momentum to start the third period, disaster struck for the Americans.

Still up by one goal, Trevor Connelly was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct with about 10 minutes to play in the period. Connelly delivered a hit to the head on Ritchie, which got him thrown out of the game. It allowed the Canadians to put their potent power play on the ice for the next five minutes.

It didn’t take long for Canada to tie the game as McKenna continued his incredible tournament by scoring on a one-timer in the slot. Tij Iginla attacked the net from the left side, drew everyone’s attention and then fed McKenna in the slot to tie the game and steal all the momentum.

The Canadians remained on the power play because of the major penalty. Cole Beaudoin, who took on a bigger role in almost every game as the tournament went on, got a pass at the top of the crease and redirected it into the open cage to give Canada the lead.

Tij Iginla added another on the power play less than a minute later to extend the lead for Canada.

All told, the game flipped on its head because of the Connelly penalty. The only player added to the U-18 squad that wasn’t with the NTDP for the past two years, Connelly’s penalty ultimately cost the Americans. Connelly was effective throughout the tournament, but one bad moment might have cast a shadow over a very solid effort.

The Americans fought back and scored quickly after the Connelly penalty expired, with Brodie Ziemer tipping an EJ Emery point shot in to pull within one, but it wasn’t enough. McKenna added an empty-netter on a perfectly placed shot from his own end, and Canada captured gold for the first time since 2021.

McKenna finished with three goals and an assist, getting him up to 20 points at the U-18s to establish a new Canadian record.

Canada’s captain, Porter Martone, sits second on that list with 17 points and set the all-time U-18 scoring mark for Canada with 24 points.

Although Hagens won MVP and set the single tournament scoring record with 22 points, it was McKenna who ultimately carried his team to gold in the finale of the tournament as Hagens was held without a point in the final.

Sweden Outlasts Slovakia for Bronze

It took until halfway through the third period, but when Sweden scored the game’s first goal, it felt right then like it could be the game-winner.

Sweden added three more in the final five minutes of the game, but it wasn’t a poor performance from Slovakia by any means. It was a hard-fought battle by one of the tournament’s youngest teams.

The Swedes started the game a bit slowly, finding themselves in the penalty box a couple of times, which allowed the Skovaks to get their juices flowing. The game was a bit of a slow-moving affair overall, as both teams seemed to be a bit inactive through the neutral zone.

A slow-paced game had little action through the first forty minutes. A Swedish goal from Lucas Pettersson was disallowed for being offside. Aside from that, both teams agreed that trading chances wasn’t what they wanted to do. This was going to be a grind-it-out affair.

When the third period started, the Slovaks were the more active team when it came to getting shots on goal, but there wasn’t much that was overly dangerous. The few threatening chances were quickly shut down by Love Harenstam, the Swedish netminder.

Finally, the dam broke open halfway through the third period, when it seemed like Sweden’s raw talent level finally shone through.

Pettersson, whose earlier goal was disallowed, finally opened the scoring on a bar-down howitzer off of an offensive zone faceoff. He collected the puck and simply unloaded a shot from high in the zone that found its way through traffic and into the top of the net.

Even though there were 10 minutes left in the game, the air seemed to be sucked out of Team Slovakia.

A few minutes later, Melvin Fernstrom picked the pocket of a Slovak defender trying to exit the zone, creating an odd-man rush from inside the blueline. Fernstrom fed Jack Berglund, who was attacking downhill. Berglund got the shot off, and the rebound came right to Fernstrom, who buried the puck from a few feet out.

The Swedes added a power-play marker by Alfons Freij after a desperation tripping penalty from Slovak forward Tomas Pobezal. They tacked on another late goal by Viktor Eklund, both coming in the final two minutes of the game, and the bronze was theirs.

The score saw the Swedes win by four, but this was truly a hard-fought battle on both sides. Talent and experience won out.