HALIFAX — In what might be the biggest plot twist of the tournament, winning the gold medal wasn’t all about the Connor Bedard show.
While Bedard was held off the scoresheet, Dylan Guenther stole the show — and the gold — by scoring off a pass from Joshua Roy at 6:22 of overtime to give Canada a 3-2 redemption win over the Czech Republic at the world junior championships on Thursday.
And while Gunther (with two) and birthday boy Shane Wright were the offensive dynamos of the night, everyone wanted to talk about Bedard, who generated chances, produced an incredible diving chip pass and was generally a threat every time he was on the ice.
“Amazing performance,” said captain Wright. “I’ve run out of things to say about how incredible his whole performance was throughout the tournament, how mature he was, how good a teammate he was to every single guy throughout the tournament. He was amazing. Even though he didn’t win a point tonight, I mean, he’s still the most valuable player of the tournament, he’s still the best player of the tournament. He’s going to have a pretty good future in hockey, that’s for sure.”
“He wants to win,” Guenther said. “I mean, he’s a winner. I think he’s willing to do whatever it takes to win and obviously (he had) a huge tournament, a historic tournament and (it was) just fun to play with him, get the chance to watch him every day.”
[brightcove videoID=6318261759112 playerID=JCdte3tMv height=360 width=640]
Everyone was talking about Bedard, except Bedard, of course.
“I don’t want to talk about myself right now, I’m talking about us and what we accomplished,” said the tournament MVP, who finished with nine goals and 14 assists for 23 points, the latter two single-tournament records for a Canadian player.
Bedard’s performance drew the attention of an entire country, and even that of a Hockey Hall of Famer who was watching from the other side.
“(He has) silky soft hands with incredible hockey sense,” Chris Pronger told Sportsnet via text message after watching the game with his family in suburban St. Louis. “Like other greats, the puck seems to follow him.”
With his performance, Bedard further solidified his spot as the No. 1 overall draft prospect for this year’s NHL Draft.
Pronger, who won gold as a member of Canada’s world junior team in 1993 and was also a highly touted junior prospect, thinks Bedard will be a star in the NHL — after a short adjustment period.
“Everybody’s size and speed, that’s always the biggest change,” he said. “A game against teenagers against men.
“He’ll be fine, but it takes a while to adjust to it and understand.”
[brightcove videoID=6318263796112 playerID=JCdte3tMv height=360 width=640]
It speaks to Bedard’s talent that even on the world stage, even while surrounded by the best players in the world his age and older, every time he touched the puck, fans expected something to happen, especially while he was being substituted in two overtime shifts.
And after Canada took a 2-0 lead in the third, it looked like the coronation was on schedule.
A pumped-up Canada somehow played physical against the bigger Czechs, striking early and often to repeatedly swing the momentum in their favor. The defense and forwards kept the Czech offense to the perimeter, forcing bad angle shots and turnovers with aggressive sticks. And when the defense-first approach failed – and it did – goalkeeper Tomas Milic was there to save the bacon and, more importantly, keep the gold.
[brightcove videoID=6318264001112 playerID=JCdte3tMv height=360 width=640]
Canada couldn’t be denied tonight and virtually everyone agreed. A good early indication of that mindset was a sacrifice fly by defenseman Tyson Hinds, who blocked two shots while taking a penalty before both teams scored.
Gunther’s one-timer just above the point on the power play opened the scoring after a nice forecheck by Brennan Othman kept the puck away from the Czechs. Not only did Othman keep possession, but for good measure, he raced to the front of the net to throw the big screen to keep Tomas Suhanek from getting a clear shot.
Then, in a Bedard-like shot on the boards in the second, Wright fought off a claustrophobic Czech passing down the wing before burying a slick backhander to put his team up 2-0. It was the highlight – a goal Bedard himself called “ridiculous” – of Wright’s best game of the tournament.
[brightcove videoID=6318265606112 playerID=JCdte3tMv height=360 width=640]
But the Czechs, who stunned Canada on Boxing Day with a 5-2 victory in a game that will forever be remembered as the time the cocky Canadians scored two Michigan tries in the first period, refused to go down without a fight.
And when Jiri Kulic scored off a rebound to break up Milich’s shutout and Jakub Kos scored off a layup 54 seconds later with time running out in the third, it looked like Canada was running out of steam.
“Right away (we) obviously (felt) a little bit disappointed, I think especially a substitution after a goal, going out there and getting a goal, and that shouldn’t happen,” Guenther said. “And then at halftime, but I mean, we knew it was a different game, three-on-three, you have to reset and just be ready for the next shift. So that was our mindset, it was just… (we) didn’t talk about the past or anything that happened. Just what’s next.”
What followed in OT was a missed assignment and a bad line change leading to a freak shot that Guenther put away, meaning the Canadians went from letting the gold slip away to Heave Away – one last, glorious time.
[brightcove videoID=6318267209112 playerID=JCdte3tMv height=360 width=640]
Although the Canadians made it look easy, sweeping through Germany, Austria and Sweden in dominant fashion in the preliminary round before surprisingly dominating the U.S. in the semifinals to win gold, Guenther said that’s not what he’ll remember about this group.
“I think how much we had to fight,” he said. “I mean, people on the outside, they think, ‘Well, you know, look at their team. They should have won. But I mean, when you’re in that room, you know how hard it is to win anything. I think how resilient we were. We lost the first game to those guys and I think we just played as one the rest of the tournament and ended up coming out on top.”
One of the things coach Dennis Williams will remember is the resilience of, you guessed it, Bedard.
“I can’t imagine being in his shoes with the amount of attention and pressure he gets on himself every night,” Williams said. “He is mature beyond his years. And again, at the end of the day, I really believe the one thing I learned from him is that he cares about winning more than anything else.
Viral Moment of the Game: We should just rename this to Connor Bedard Viral Moment of the Game. This incredible diving chip from Bedard to Logan Stankoven in the second is worth the hype:
[brightcove videoID=6318253429112 playerID=JCdte3tMv height=360 width=640]
Add Comment