WJC 2025 Medal Round RECAP: What it's all about

01/06/2025 08:00 AM

Two Overtime games. Two dramatic wins. Two excellent reminders for why the World Juniors is awesome.

Being a Sweden fan has to feel like getting punched in the back of the head every World Juniors.

I genuinely do not know what to tell you about Sweden, man. Every stereotype of their game in these tournaments came roaring back the instant prelims ended and it's frankly a miracle they didn't have it start happening sooner against Latvia. The Swedes will still have a strong team, but this was about as good a version of Team Sweden as you're ever going to get and it still didn't even get them Bronze.
I dunno about you but Seattle Kraken and St. Louis fans ought to be pretty jazzed about Eduard Sale and Jakub Stancl being absolute juggernauts at this tournament; having goals in almost every game they played and Sale in specific being the man the Czechs began to rely on more and more to eventually finish things out. Thank god that's the other conferences problem unless they're in the market to move them. In which case...let's talk.
Congrats to Czechia on your third straight medal! I'm sure you're looking more for silver and gold, but take heart! That means next year you'll have a baseline to hit!

I know a lot of you watched the Bruins but this game was worth watching.

For a while, the US ran headfirst into their old demons at these tournaments; a slow start, and defensive lapses that kept giving the score back to Leijonat. However, to their credit, they didn't wait until the third period to play hero hockey, they rebounded quite nicely in the 2nd period, and kept the pressure up until it was time for extra hockey, at which point they finally found a failure state for the Finns. This is what the US is now at this level; they are the team to beat, and made it abundantly clear you need to pull that win out kicking and screaming. Excellent tournament all around for them, well done.
Finland is a tough beat, man. They really found themselves after getting blown up by Canada, and probably set off a major bidding war for the services of Petteri Rimpinen; their starting goalie that we won't hear about until much later down the line. Sure, right now he's a major part of a Liiga team that's comfortably in a playoff spot, but what about when the Liiga season ends? Keep that in mind. Otherwise, damn good squad, really was the only thing the US actually seemed to fear, brought a perfect way for this great tournament to end. Hold your heads high, kids.
The US team revealed that they'd been carrying a Team USA jersey with Johnny Gaudreau's name and number on the back the entire tournament. That's just cool, man. These kids are gonna be alright.
YEAAAAAAAH A KID FROM NEWBURYPORT WON GOLD AT THE WORLD JUNIORS LETS GOOOOOOO-

Congratulations to the United States on winning the Gold Medal! And Thank you for reading this year's coverage of the World Juniors!

God I hope the Bruins send someone to this tournament again. This was just an excellent tournament all around.