LA Kings: Walker, Canada Top USA to Advance to Worlds Final
By Ryan Cowley
With the help of LA Kings defenseman Sean Walker, Team Canada Advances to the championship game at the 2021 Worlds After Defeating Team USA 4-2.
It has been a rollercoaster of a tournament for Team Canada, to say the least. After an underwhelming — not to mention shocking — 0-3 start at the 2021 World Championship, Team Canada turned their fortunes around. On Saturday, they entered the semi-final against Team USA and, with the help of LA Kings defenseman Sean Walker, advance to the championship final thanks to a hard-fought 4-2 victory.
Walker got things started by setting up the game’s opening goal, scored by Brandon Pirri, just 2:02 into the contest. Team USA, however, tied the game at the 17:17 mark of the first as Colin Blackwell scored with Kings defenseman Christian Wolanin setting things up with the primary assist.
From there, Team Canada scored twice — both goals courtesy of Andrew Mangiapane — to make it 3-1. But, Newport Beach, CA, native Sasha Chmelevski pulled the Americans to within a goal.
Team USA definitely made things interesting, pressing to tie on a few occasions, but Justin Danforth added an empty-netter to ice the win for Canada as they now advance to Sunday’s championship where they will face the winner of the Finland-Germany semi-final.
As for the Kings contingency in this game, Trevor Moore was uncharacteristically quiet in this one, being left without a point. Matt Roy, who was injured in USA’s quarter-final vs. Slovakia, didn’t play, but the aforementioned Christian Wolanin did receive Team USA’s Play of the Game honors for his efforts on Saturday. Also, in spite of the loss, netminder Cal Petersen had a strong game, making 29 saves against Team Canada.
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American head coach Jack Capuano spoke to the media after the game. Despite his team’s loss, though, the coach was proud of his team.
“I’ve coached a lot of hockey games [and this is] one of the best groups that I ever coached character-wise,” Capuano stressed. “You lose your captain, [Justin] Abdelkaeder, you lose your assistant captain, [Matt] Roy, you got Matty Beniers, going to be a top pick out. We got some guys banged up and they just battle every shift against a really good team.”
Capuano then touched on the factors that led to Team Canada’s victory.
“I think 88 really changes the dynamic of that team,” he said, referring to Andrew Mangiapane. “I just think that he gives [Adam] Henrique and [Connor] Brown, obviously, guys that I know pretty well. It gives him a little bit tougher matchup for the D and with the wide ice, I think 88, he’s got really good speed and knack for the net and I think that he’s really added a little bit of jolt to the team. But, I think Canada starting off the tournament the way they did, it was a lot of things that had to go right for them to even get in, but I give them credit. It’s a mental game, they stayed with it, and they played extremely hard, and it was a really good hockey game.”
In regards to the Kings players representing Canada, Gabe Vilardi finished with a plus-one rating, Jaret Anderson-Dolan with a minus-one, and the aforementioned Sean Walker a plus-one, a primary assists, and four shots on goal.
Team USA will play for bronze at 8:15 am ET (5:15 am PT). Team Canada will then go for gold at 1:15 pm ET (10:15 PT).