Calgary Flames at the World Championship: Quarter Finals Recap

Well, it was a happy ending for one Calgary Flames player. Let’s check out how the Flames did at the World Championship in the quarter finals.

Both players on the Calgary Flames made it to the quarter finals. It was Team Canada vs. Team Germany and Team USA vs. Team Finland. For Team Canada, I was thinking that Chad Johnson would perhaps start in net because Calvin Pickard played in the game before and Canada has been somewhat alternating their goalies. However, that was just for the preliminary round and we thought that maybe they’d put Pickard again for the quarter finals.

And they did, but everything’s good because Canada won 2-1 in a late game thriller when Germany cut the lead to one with still over six minutes left. But Canada was on them all game and managed 50 shots on goal vs. Germany’s 20 shots. This of course earned Phillip Grubauer the player of the game for Germany with his 48 saves.

Chad Johnson and Team Canada will now face Russia in the semi-final which takes place on Saturday.

Calgary Flames

On to less exciting news, but Johnny Gaudreau and Team USA’s IIHF Gold medal dreams came to an end today. They lost in a disappointing 2-0 shutout loss to Team Finland. They weren’t playing like their typical USA selves they have been basically all tournament, they were taking too many penalties and they weren’t making the plays they needed to make.

This also means that Johnny had no points in today’s game which put his six-game point streak to an end. After the preliminary round, he was tied in first for goals among all skaters at the tournament (6), leading Team USA in goals, and leading Team USA in points (11).

Via USA Hockey:

"“It goes without saying we’re bitterly disappointed,” said Jeff Blashill, head coach of the 2017 U.S. Men’s National Team. “We believed that this team had the ability to win the tournament. They are a great group who cared, were selfless and played some great hockey. Unfortunately, Finland was better than we were today and I congratulate them.”"

Via Detroit News:

"“(The Finns) made it tough on us all night long,” Goalie Jimmy Howard said.“We had the puck a lot today, but we couldn’t break through trap,” Dylan Larkin said. “It was a frustrating game, frustrating way to end the tournament after so many positives.”"

Even though USA lost and Johnny’s hockey ends for now, he was still named one of Team USA’s three best players of the tournament (yay Johnny!), Dylan Larkin and Anders Lee were named the other two.

Next: On the Road to Becoming Elite

Let’s get ready to cheer on Chad Johnson and Team Canada as they continue their fight for a medal.