Canada rallied past Russia 4-2, overcoming a 2-0 third-period deficit, to move one win from its third straight men’s hockey world title Saturday.
The Canadians picked up goals from Mark Scheifele (17 seconds into the third), Nathan McKinnon (with 4:53 left), Ryan O’Reilly (3:02 left) and Sean Couturier (1:07 left, empty net) in the semifinal victory.
Canada has now won eight straight elimination games at hockey worlds dating to 2015. It will play Sweden in the gold-medal game Sunday (2:45 p.m. ET, NBCSports.com/live and the NBC Sports app), a rematch of the Sochi Olympic final won by Canada.
Canada seeks the first worlds three-peat since the Czech Republic in 2001.
Washington Capitals star Evgeny Kuznetsov and Nikita Gusev scored for Russia in the second period Saturday. Full stats are here.
The Russians will try for their fourth straight world medal in the bronze-medal game against Finland on Sunday (10:15 a.m. ET, NBCSports.com/live and the NBC Sports app).
This year’s Canadian team is missing some of the stars from its last two world titles, such as Corey Perry, Brad Marchand and Connor McDavid from 2016 and Sidney Crosby and Tyler Seguin in 2015.
Likewise, Russia is without Alex Ovechkin at worlds for the first time since 2009.
The U.S. men’s hockey team was eliminated by Finland in the quarterfinals Thursday, ending a six-game winning streak.
The U.S., which hasn’t won a world title since 1960, failed to build on the recent success of two bronze medals from the last four world championships.
OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!
MORE: Bettman quashes renewed Olympic hope in talk with IIHF boss