Finland edge into semi-finals after 3-2 OT win over USA

Russia next opponents on Friday evening

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Those who stayed up late on Wednesday night to watch Finland’s Ice Hockey World Championships quarter-final against the United States had to withstand a nail-biting finish to proceedings before defenseman Sami Lepistö scored through a crowd of players after 3 minutes and 59 seconds of overtime had passed.
      The second meeting with the Americans - the teams had played on Sunday in a dramatic comeback win for the Finns that was marked by huge numbers of penalties and some raw violence - took a diametrically opposed course.
      This time it was the Finns who skated to a 2-0 lead after two periods before a stirring USA rearguard action forced the game into overtime.
     
The Finns got on the scoreboard at 10:14 in the first period, when Olli Jokinen sent Tuomo Ruutu away, and Ruutu drilled his shot underneath goalie Robert Esche from the bottom of the faceoff circle.
      The lead held up until the end of the period, which was otherwise marked only by one minor penalty for either side.
      The United States’ defenseman Martin Greene took a two-minute penalty for high sticking after five minutes of the second period, and within 20 seconds the Finns had punished the lapse with a powerplay goal courtesy of Janne Niskala. Niskala was picked out at the point by Olli Jokinen and he fired hard through traffic in front of Esche.
     
The second period came to a premature end just over a minute before the buzzer when a failure was discovered in the plexiglass surrounds, and the referees decided to take the players off before time and add the necessary seconds to the third period.
      The Finns were at least initially unfazed by the arrangement, and they determinedly blocked all the approaches by the increasingly desperate Americans.
     
At least they did until there were just four minutes left on the clock, when a few momentary lapses of concentration suddenly left the scores tied.
      At 55:44 Phil Kessel diverted a shot from the point by Tim Gleason over the shoulder of Niklas Bäckström in the Finnish goal, and less than a minute later Team USA were on level terms after Drew Stafford broke down the right as the Americans played short-handed, and fired past Bäckström into the far corner.
      Although Stafford then promptly took a minor penalty for hooking, leaving the Americans briefly two men short-handed, the Finns could not close matters out in regulation time.
     
The Finnish heads did not go down, although they well might have, and a disciplined performance and some solid play under pressure led eventually to joyful scenes after Sami Lepistö broke the overtime deadlock.
      The goal was the Washington Capitals' player's first in a Finnish jersey, and could hardly have come at a better moment. Last season the 23-year-old Lepistö spent most of his time in the AHL, playing for the Hershey Bears, the Capitals' farm team.
     
It was not always very attractive and crowd-pleasing hockey from the Finns, but the caution was very understandable given the sudden-death nature of the game.
      As in the previous encounter, which had been marred by poor refereeing, a phantom goal, and by excesses on both sides, the Finns outshot the Americans fairly comfortably 33-24, and by 24 to 11 in the first two periods.
     
The win sets up a shot at the medals in the form of a semi-final encounter on Friday against Russia, who overwhelmed Switzerland 6-0 in a routine performance.
      That match was over as a spectacle within seven minutes of the start, as the Russians skated to a 3-0 lead through Alexander Semin, Maxim Afinogenov, and Danis Zaripov, although technically the third goal was scored by Swiss defender Philippe Furrer .
      Canada trounced Norway 8-2, erasing some of the blushes brought by an earlier narrow 2-1 win over the Norwegians at the Qualification Group stage, and they will play Sweden for a place in the final. The Swedes came from 2-1 down with only four minutes to play and won 3-2 in overtime.
     
Both Canada and Sweden have extraordinary records at the quarter-final level in this competition: the Canadians were recording their sixth straight progression into the semis, while for Sweden it was number eight.
      At the other end of the scale, this was the seventh time in the last nine years that the Americans have fallen at this hurdle. The Finns come somewhere in the middle, having four wins and three defeats in the past seven attempts.
     
Finland’s Canadian coach Doug Shedden was well pleased with his team’s showing, but there was a lot of relief as well at the happy ending to a match that could have gone very sour after the third-period collapse.
      Like the fans who stayed up, Shedden was particularly heartened by the way the team responded to the late setback - we have all seen plenty of examples, particularly when the opposition is from Sweden, of the Lions snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
     
Friday’s games will be televised on YLE TV2.
      The Russia-Finland match is even at a decent hour, 20:00. Canada and Sweden face off at midnight.
      If Finland progress to the final, it will be on Sunday, while the “match that nobody wants”, for the bronze medals, will be on Saturday. Finland were beaten finalists in Moscow last year, losing 4-2 to Canada.
      Finland will be up against a star-studded Russian team, but one player will not be there to pose a threat: star forward Ilya Kovalchuk took a major penalty and a game misconduct for a rash charge on Swiss defenseman Julien Vauclair, and he misses the next match through an automatic one-game suspension.
      All four remaining matches will be played in Quebec City, so the Canadian and Finnish squads will have to move from their Halifax base - definitely a better alternative than starting their summer holidays.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Canada 6 - Finland 3: Defensive errors costly as World Champions give lesson in cool finishing (13.5.2008)
  Finland still undefeated at Ice Hockey World Championships, but only just (12.5.2008)

Links:
  Game Summary: USA-Finland (.pdf file)
  2008 IIHF World Championships (Wikipedia)

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