PRAGUE – Pavel Zacha scored on a second-period power play, and Czechia held on to its lead to beat the United States 1-0 Thursday night in the quarterfinals of the World Hockey Championship .
The Czechs were greatly helped by the brilliance of their young goalkeeper Lukas Dostal, author of 26 saves for the shutout.
The crowd favorites will try to get their hands on their first gold medal since the 2010 edition of the competition this weekend.
In front of the American net, Charlie Lindgren was tested 19 times.
In Ostrava, a few minutes later, a goal from Joel Eriksson Ek in overtime allowed Sweden to win their all-Scandinavian duel 2-1 against Finland.
Undefeated in the preliminary phase, the Swedes will be the Czechs’ opponents in the semi-final on Saturday, while Canada will face Switzerland, who got the better of Germany earlier in the day. The Sweden-Czech Republic semi-final will be presented Saturday at 8 a.m. with RDS2 and RDS.ca.
The United States finished the preliminary round in second place in Group B, with five wins in seven games.
The Czech Republic had also won four matches (including one in extra time) and arrived on Thursday as the third best team in Group A.
David Spacek and Roman Cervenka assisted on Zacha’s goal.
The United States, which finished in fourth place in 2022 and 2023, has not won the World Hockey Championship since 1960. The Americans have not reached the final since that title as well.
In the Swedish victory, Rasmus Dahlin opened the scoring in the third period, but Hannes Bjorninen forced overtime when he tied the score with 58 seconds left on the clock.
Filip Gustavsson blocked 19 shots in the victory. For her part, Finnish Emil Larmi stopped 33 pucks.
