The United States joined Finland in the World Junior final on Saturday evening.
The Americans beat the Czech Republic 4-1 and will try to win back-to-back gold medals for the first time in their history. This is also the first time that they have participated in the final two consecutive years.
Finland won 4-3 in overtime during their first meeting in the preliminary round, in Group A.
The Gabe Perreault-Ryan Leonard duo created a lot of scoring opportunities like during the overwhelming quarter-final victory against Switzerland (7-2) and each of them got a goal and an assist today.
Cole Eiserman also hit the target and Oliver Moore completed the scoring into an empty net, while goaltender Trey Augustine did the right thing by blocking 13 of the 14 shots aimed at him. Only Jakub Stancl managed to thwart him, when he created the tie 1-1 midway through the first period, responding to Perreault.
Austin Burnevik missed a practically open cage late in the third period in an extremely close duel until then when he took advantage of a pass from Ryan Leonard in the slot, while the United States maintained a very slim lead of 2 -1.
So Leonard took matters into his own hands by adding an insurance goal. Perreault took advantage of a very bad change on the Czech bench to launch a two-on-one with Leonard, who easily beat the goalkeeper to his left.
Team USA now has a 15-3-1-8-1 record against Czechia in its history. The last 10 times Americans have reached the semifinals, they have left the tournament with a medal.
Canada
