By: Liz Rizzo | Follow me on Twitter @pastagrl88
The stage has been set for the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Tampere, Finland and for the remaining Bruins players Jeremy Swayman and David Pastrnak will be watching from the sidelines. The Unites States and Czechia have now been eliminated from the final match-up and will face each other for the Bronze medal on Sunday. Finland has now reached their third straight title game and will be looking to get the gold medal.
This afternoon the United States Men’s Hockey team were defeated 4-3 by the host country Finland. It was a hard fought game with the US team scoring first, however the FInnish team came out on top. Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman has been outstanding so far in the tournament; he posted a 0.69 GAA (goals against average) with a 96.9 save percentage and made 22 saves.
It was 1933 when the United States last won an IIHF World Championship tournament. They have won the bronze medal in 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2021 and have a chance to add another one this Sunday as both Swayman and Pastrnak face each other for third place. For the Bruins netminder, it wasn’t the end result the team wanted however the effort wasn’t lacking:
“I’m disappointed with the result, but proud of the effort. It’s tough, but we’ve gotta regroup quickly because there’s still a job it do tomorrow (Sunday).”
US Men’s Team and Boston Bruins Goaltender Jeremy Swayman
This Saturday Czechia was eliminated from the finals when Canada defeated them in a lopsided 6-1 match-up. Both teams were tied going into the second period however Canada scored three goals to break the tie. Special teams made quite an impact on the outcome of the game as Canada scored on three power plays and Czechia scored on one. Shots favored the boys from up north 35-26.
Canada dominated the second period and took a commanding 4-1 lead. Former Bruin David Krejci opened the scoring for Czechia’s however Canada’s Dylan Cozens tied it at one-a-piece. Czechia’s Captain Roman Cervenka would find Krejci who slapped the puck in past Chris Dreidger and scored the team’s lone goal. Czechia would get a penalty shot in the third period and David Pastrnak was chosen to take the shot however it went wide. Dreidger blocked a shot by Pastrnak and teammate Jakub Vrana on a breakaway as the Czech team looked to regain momentum.
“I’m disappointed with my performance, but unfortunately, that’s what hockey is like sometimes…sometimes you have a great day, other times it doesn’t work out. It’s important to find the motivation right after the match so that it turns around right away and nothing like that comes next…clearly it’s a big disappointment, we wanted to be better and better which we didn’t succeed.
A team like Canada will punish you if you stop playing, and it will be difficult to let you back in…I don’t know what happened in the second period, but we completely stopped playing our game. We couldn’t get back in that.”
Czechia and Boston Bruins winger David Pastrnak
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