World Junior Hockey Shockers, Canada & Sweden Out
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — One and done quarter finals not kind at World Juniors.
Canada and Sweden tumbled out of the world junior hockey title chase in stunning quarterfinal collapses.
Canada fell 2-1 to Finland in overtime Wednesday night after giving up the tying goal in the final minute of regulation and missing a penalty shot early in the extra period.
Earlier, Sweden dropped a 2-0 decision to Switzerland in Victoria.
Aleksi Heponiemi scored for Finland with 47 seconds left in regulation with goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen off for an extra attacker, and Toni Utunen ended it at 5:17 of overtime.
Luukkonen stopped Maxim Comtois on the penalty shot in overtime, with the Canadian captain smashing the puck into Luukkonen's pads. Canada was last ousted in the quarterfinals in 2016 in Helsinki, also by Finland, which went on to win the gold medal. Ian Mitchell scored in the second period for Canada.
Luukkonen finished with 23 saves, and Michael DiPietro stopped 32 shots for Canada.
Luca Hollenstein made 41 saves for Switzerland and Yannick Bruschweiler and Luca Wyss scored. Finland will face Switzerland in the semifinals Friday.
"To us, it's very big," Wyss said. "Everyone around talked that Sweden is going to beat us. We as a team had in our heads we can play against Sweden."
In the other quarterfinals Wednesday night, the United States faced the Czech Republic, and Group A winner Russia met Slovakia.
Sweden lost after winning all four of its Group B games to run its round-robin winning streak to 48 games.
"It's hockey," Swedish coach Tomas Monten said. "They played a really good game. We lost our tempo with the puck."
Switzerland finished fourth in Group A, beating only overmatched Denmark.
"The confidence is huge," Swiss coach Christian Wohlwend said. "The team belief is huge. We're just riding on the wave now."
In regulation play in Vancouver, Kazakhstan beat Denmark 4-3 in Game 1 of the best-of-three series.
Oleg Boiko, Yemar Musabayev, Sayan Daniyar and Artur Gatiyatov scored for Kazakhstan, and Demid Yeremeyev made 40 saves. Jonas Rondbjerg, Andreas Grundtvig and Malte Setkov countered for Denmark, its first goals of the tournament after being outscored 26-0 in four round-robin games.
The series loser will drop to Division I. Germany advanced from Division I for 2020.
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