Rocco Grimaldi has been a quiet man in these WJCs. He entered the game with no goals.
He's a classic rags to riches story. The 5'6 165 ilb. Californian has had his ups and downs in his young hockey career.
Two years ago the University of North Dakota product was Team USA's last cut of the training camp. He blew out his knee last season.He rehabbed himself back to good health and competed admirably for his roster spot. He was benched for the final round robin game for USA. Ups and downs, until the gold medal game.
Sweden opened the scoring in the second period on a nifty goal by Sandberg. Then, Grimaldi channeled his inner Rocky Balboa.
What a great underdog story Grimaldi has become!
The diminutive USA forward has saved his best hockey for the biggest game of his life.
His coach, Phil Housley, has been preaching the gospel of scoring "greasy goals" for this whole tournament. Today, Grimaldi gave his coach exactly what he wanted!
Grimaldi tied the gold medal game for Team USA with this beauty of a knuckle puck.
Grimaldi then scored the game wining goal, his second goal of the biggest game of his life. A deft deflection off his glove. Puck Luck, Part Deux!
Vince Trocheck would score the empty netter to seal the deal.
3-1 final score. USA wins its second WJC gold medal in the pastfour years.
Congrats to former Buffalo Sabres Dman extraordinaire, Phil Housley. Ditto Jake McCabe.
Its hard not to love a story like Rocco Grimaldi's.
From zero in the round robin to the hero in the gold medal game.
I woke up to watch a chess match of a bronze medal game and a road hockey game broke out. I love this game!
The 2013 WJC bronze medal game between Canada and Russia has had a disctinct Edmonton Oilers flavour to it.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov turned an otherwise boring, ho-hum affair into a pyrotehnics show for the ages! The two captains for their respective squads didn't disappoint at all. Talk about leadership. These guys led by example! The two former first overalll picks represented the Oilers well as they each won the "player of the game" for their respective countries.
The game started like a track meet when the Russians beat Jordan Binnington for three goals on five shots. Steve Spott yanked Binnington and replaced him with Malcolm Subban.
Mikhail Grigorenko's new liney, Khoklachyov opened the scoring for Russia.
Then, Nail Yakupov PPG made it 2-0 Russia
Thankfully for Canada, Ryan Nugent Hopkins topped the bleeding with this beauty PPG. Talk about HUGE push back goals. If RNH doesn't score and Russia makes it 3-0, this game would be over.
Video courtesy NHL Network
Dyakov would restore the two goal lead with his goal, 3-2 Russia.
Jonathon Huberdeau cut the lead to 3-2 with his PPG.
The track meet continues as Mark Scheifele scored Canada's third PP of the game. All tied at 3-3.
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4-3 Russia
Evgeni Mozer scored the go ahead goal 1:07 later.
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Subban has only allowed one goal against since the goal change was made. Smart decision by Steve Spott to pull Binnington from the game when he did. Subban has stopped the bleeding for Canada.
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Makarov cannot be blamed for the 3 goals he's allowed thus far. Poor defense rotation to the shooter led to 3 PPGs against. Faulty PK communication.
Coming into today's bronze medal game, Makarov had only allowed 4 goals on 89 shots.
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Yarullin took another Russia penalty and Ryan Murphy made him pay. RNH finds Murphy all alone at teh point. Shot, deflection, goal.
Canada's fourth PPG of the day.
RNH takes the lead in the WJC scoring leader race. He now has 15 points in the tourney. In two periods of play today, he already has a goal and three assists, all on the PP.
RNH has now either scored or assisted on 14 of Canada's 25 goals thus far at #2013WJC
60 seconds into the third period, Kapustin finds Yakupov all alone on the far post. Yakupov roofs it over Subban's glove. Nail's second PPG of the day.
Three goals, three assists combined between Edmonton Oilers prospects Yakupov and Nugent-Hopkins in this morning's 2013 WJC bronze medal game.
5-4 Russia
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5-5
Brett Ritchie ties the game on a goalmouth scramble. Puck looked like it clunked in off of the skate of Nesterov.
Canada's first even strength goal of the game, after 4 consecutive PPGs.
Canada has not lead this game once today.
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Overtime:
Grigorenko didn't win the game, however, SAVED the game. Literally. With Makarov down and out of the Russia net, Grigo dropped to his knees and made a right leg save on Philip Danault's point blank shot on goal.
The Russians then broke out. Nichushkin took the puck off teh halfwall hard to Subban's crease.
Game over.
No medal for Canada, who never held the lead once in the bronze medal game. Whats shocking to me is that Canada started the game very flat and uninspired for the second game in a row. The start of this game looked eerily like the start of the USA game. Before you could settle into your recliner, the Russians were leading 2-0. Binnington was not prepared to start this game. Thats the fault of Steve Spott and his coaches. Malcolm Subban was the clearly the best goalie for Canada in this tourney.
Canada's disappointed captain, Nugent-Hopkins, spoke with TSN after the bronze medal loss
Here are your complete game highlights, compliments of the NHL Network.
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Grigorenko finished the tournament with 33 shits on goal. He had 2 goals and 4 assist. He was +4. He won nearly 50% of his draws. Now, he returns to Quebec City to resume his junior dominance with the Remparts.
No surprise here, Grigo was names Russia's top forward in the tourney. Nesterov was named their top D. Vasilevski was named their top goalie. I agree with all of these except awards, except I feel that Makarov deserved best goalie for Russia.
Jake McCabe is getting more face time and pub these days than Hollywood badass Bradley Cooper. Over the course of the past two weeks, McCabe has morphed into a leading man from a supporting actor.
Great news for Buffalo Sabres fans!
A Team USA gold medal victory against Sweden will catapult McCabe into rockstar status
Thanks, IIHF
For the first time ever that Team USA and Sweden have squared off for the gold medal in the tournament's history.
USA and Sweden faced off in an exhibition prior to the 2013 WJC tournament. Riley Barber said each team has been laying its "A" game since the last time they met.
"The exhibition game really means nothing," he said. "They've been playing great so far and so have we so we're just going to work hard for the next game."
What has transpired between the 3-2 overtime U.S. win on 12/20 and today is a complex combination of victories, defeats and bonding on each team. The key for Team USA, head coach Phil Housley said, is that they have continued steady improvement and appear to be peaking at the right moment.
"I think each game we've gotten better," he said. "Our goaltending has been great. We're getting opportunistic scoring from our forwards."
The teams match up well in many areas. In goaltending, the Americans have relied on the solid play of John Gibson, who leads the tournament in save percentage (.954), minutes played (338) and goals against average (1.42) among those who have played at least 40% of their team's games.
Sweden will counter with two goaltenders who have split time, but it was Niklas Lundstrom who played in the semifinals against Russia. He leads Sweden with a 1.45 goals against average and a 94.59 save percentage, which trails Gibson only in the event.
Sweden's top scorers are Emil Molin (2-4-6) and Sebastian Collberg (4-2-6). Filip Forsberg is a threat as well and his five points have been tallied while leading the team with 28 shots in the tournament. He is a dynamic playmaker and will be a player to watch on Saturday.
Sweden swept its group with wins over Latvia, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Finland to earn the bye to the semifinals where they edged host Russia in a shootout to reach the title game. This team has many players who have faced the U.S. in the IIHF World Under-18 Championship gold medal games the last two years, both won by Team USA.
Seth Jones, who captained last year's Under-18 National Team to a world title that included a 7-0 shutout of Sweden in the final, said he and his teammates are familiar with the players they'll face on Saturday.
"They're a great team and we expect the most from them," he said. "This will be my third gold medal game against Sweden."
After a quiet first three games in the tournament, U.S. forward John Gaudreau has exploded with 7 goals in the last three games including a hat trick against the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals.
"It's just a great time for the team to come together," he said. "This morning [Housley] was right after us and telling us that we have one more game to play and he has us focused on that"
Gaudreau leads the team with nine points followed by teammates Jacob Trouba and Alex Galchenyuk at eight points and Seth Jones with seven.
The Americans spread the points around with a balanced attack that has even resulted in two assists for Gibson.
After defeating their rival Canada, Team USA took the night to celebrate and enjoy the victory but on Friday morning Housley turned his team's focus to their ultimate prize.
I like McCabe to lead his brigade over Sweden for the gold medal.
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