Russia – Finland 5:3 (1:0; 3:1; 1:2) / 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Cologne / Paris
Before the match, the question was: who had best dealt with yesterday's semi-final defeat - which coach was able to breathe enough ambition back into his disappointed players. The Sbornaja lost 2-0 to Canada after leading 4-2. Finland had lost 1-4 in the Scandinavian duel against their eternal rivals from Sweden.
And again the shouts of “Russia, Russia” rang through the LANXESS arena. 16.182 spectators wanted to witness this match. After 6:58 minutes, the disc found its way into the Finnish goal for the first time - Nikita Gusev had put his colors in the lead with his sixth goal of the tournament with a hard-hitting shot from half-right. The Finns defended themselves as best they could, but the Russian attack machine was running! After 20 minutes of play, the players went into the 10-minute break with 9 (RUS):15 (FIN) shots on goal.
The Finns started the second third with the advantage, but the goal was scored by Oleg Znarog's players while they were outnumbered. Vladimir Tkachyov completed a nice counterattack via Valeri Nichushkin and Artyom Zub with a direct takedown that was worth seeing. Four minutes had passed when Sbornaja were in the majority and took advantage immediately: Gusev completed a dream combination with his second goal of the day - 3-0. Just 75 seconds later the result was 4-0 - Bogdan Kiselevich didn't hesitate for long and gave Joonas Korpisalo no chance in the Finns' goal. This was then replaced (29). Harri Sateri took over! In the 40th minute, Mikko Rantanen scored the first goal for the Northern Europeans when he didn't give Andrei Vasilevski the slightest chance from point-blank range in the Russians' metal box - 1:4 from the Finns' perspective.
76 seconds had been played in the final period when the score was suddenly 2:4! Would the Russians throw away this lead they thought they had secured again, like they did against Canada? The Finnish defender fired an "embarrassing shot" from the blue line that slipped through Vasilevski's pads. When Team Russia was given a penalty in the 45th minute, it was Veli-Matti Savinainen who put the puck in the net - they were back in the game, only 3:4! Russia took a timeout and shortly afterwards it was Nikita Kucherov who scored the 5:3 (49th minute). Finland tried to calm down their own ranks. When nothing worked, Finland's head coach Lauri Marjamaki took the goalkeeper off the ice, but ultimately it was not enough and Russia can celebrate the bronze medal!
Artyom Zub: "It was a very close game, and we started very well. The Finns had a little less time to recover. You could tell that in the middle period, when they seemed pretty worn out and we scored the goals. When they scored the goals to pull back, the match against Canada was in our minds again, but this time we did better. ... But it's very difficult to be happy about winning the bronze medal, especially since we didn't lose to Canada, but failed ourselves. A stupid third period and the gold medal match turned into the bronze medal match!"
Tore: 1:0 (6:58) Gusev; 2:0 (21:48) Tkachyov {SH}; 3:0 (27:01) Gusev {PP}; 4:0 (28:16) Kiselevich; 4:1 (39:33) Rantanen; 4:2 (41:16) Lehtonen; 4:3 (45:29) Savinainen {PP}; 5:3 (48:03) Kucherov
Punish: 8 (RUS) : 10 (FIN)
spectator: 16.182
Text: Ivo Jaschick