OTTAWA – It’s as if it was written in the sky, and we could see this hasty elimination coming from miles around.
Despite an inspired comeback attempt, Canada lost 4-3 to the Czech Republic to be shown the exit door in the quarter-finals of the World Junior Championship for a second year in a row. Adam Jecho’s goal with 39.4 seconds left ended an excruciating tournament for Dave Cameron’s squad.
For the first time since the round-robin format was introduced in 1996, Canada is excluded from the medal round for a second consecutive year.
Bradly Nadeau, however, helped the locals forget an atrocious first period, during which he fell behind 3-1, by creating a tie with 4:18 remaining in the game. But the penalty to Andrew Gibson spoiled everything at the end of the match.
Jecho took the opportunity to beat Carter George with a one-timer to make the difference.
We can say that with the way they played throughout the competition, the Canadians did not deserve a better fate. Even on Thursday it would have been difficult for them to go out in a worse way.
Petr Sikora opened the scoring with just 43 seconds remaining to throw a cold shower on the crowd at the Canadian Tire Center. As if that wasn’t enough, Cole Beaudoin was ejected from the game for kneeing Sikora, giving the Czechs five minutes of power play.
Tanner Howe tied the game on the penalty kill, only to see Jakub Stancl tie the game on the same power play thanks to a blunder by defenseman Sam Dickinson. Eduard Sale added with 2.1 seconds left in the first.
With a two-goal lead, the Czechs opted for defensive play with 40 minutes remaining. They played the trap to perfection until Sale was punished at the end of the period.
It didn’t take much for Porter Martone, scratched from the lineup in the last two games, to breathe some life into his team with a clever deflection of a point shot from Tanner Molendyk. His first goal of the competition reduced the gap to 3-2 and allowed the maple leaf to finish the period strong.
Limited to just four shots in the first 17 minutes of the period, they directed five at Michael Hrabal’s cage before the bell rang. They continued their very good work in the third period, and believed they had tied the game on a play orchestrated by Ethan Gauthier and Mathieu Cataford.
The puck crossed the red line, but after a review requested by Cameron, Cataford was ruled to have obstructed the goaltender. Canada was punished for delaying the game, but managed to recover from the subsequent penalty. It still cut his rhythm and he couldn’t find it again.
The worst possible answer
After spending the last few hours repeating that it was time to stop talking, be disciplined and take action, Cameron’s men offered a pathetic response.
After 10 minutes of play, they trailed by a goal, had given up a breakaway, 10 shots and received two penalties – a minor and a major. We thought that Howe’s shorthanded equalizing goal would put a stop to the bleeding, but that was not the case.
A little more than two minutes later, still during the major penalty to Cole Beaudoin, defender Sam Dickinson deflected an errant puck into his own net after an off-target shot from Stancl, bringing life back to the Czechs who were doing nothing of value on the power play.
Then, to top it all off, the locals gave up a goal with 2.1 seconds left in the period following a defensive confusion. They thus returned to the locker room with a two-goal deficit, which proved difficult to make up for.
