Canada beat Finland to set up USA rematch in 4 Nations Face-Off final
Nathan MacKinnon scored twice and Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid had a goal and an assist apiece as Canada surged to a four-goal lead and held on to beat Finland 5-3 on Monday to earn a rematch against the United States in the 4 Nations Face-Off final.
On the same ice where he clinched the 2019 Stanley Cup for the St Louis Blues, Jordan Binnington stopped 23 shots to give Canada a chance to avenge their 3-1 round-robin loss to the Americans. Brayden Point also scored and Sam Reinhart had three assists as Canada opened a 4-0 lead in the first 25 minutes before watching Finland scramble back to make it a one-goal game in the final 100 seconds.
The tournament is the NHL’s return to international competition after sitting out the 2018 and 2022 Olympics. It delivered a fight-filled US-Canada game last week against a backdrop of frosty real-world relations between the countries, spurred by US [resident Donald Trump’s talk of tariffs – or even turning turning Canada into the 51st US state.
The Americans were scheduled to play Sweden on Monday night in a game that lost any meaning once Canada clinched the second spot in the final. The US won both of its previous round-robin games, earning the top spot in the pool.
After the tepid booing during the Canadian national anthem, Monday’s matinee had little of the intensity that filled the Belle Center in Montreal for the preliminaries.
Until the final two minutes.
McDavid opened the scoring just four minutes in and then MacKinnon made it 2-0 less than a minute later. Before five minutes had elapsed, the Finns had used their timeout in an attempt to settle things down.
Point gave the Canadians a 3-0 lead late in the first, and then MacKinnon made it 4-0 five minutes into the second. That was all for Kevin Lankinen, who stopped five of nine shots in all.
Juuse Saros made 14 saves the rest of the way.
Binnington stopped Finland’s first 19 shots before Esa Lindell scored with about seven minutes remaining to end the bid for what would have been the first shutout of the tournament. With Saros pulled for an extra attacker, Mikael Granlund scored a pair of goals in the final two minutes to make it a one-goal game before Crosby flipped a loose puck from center ice into the empty net.
