Canada secured a semifinal berth on the world hockey championship and in addition avenged a memorable loss to host Finland on Thursday.

Jack Quinn, Samuel Blais, Michael Carcone and Tyler Toffoli scored as Canada posted a 4-1 victory on the Nokia Area. Teemu Hartikainen scored late within the third interval for Finland however Toffoli answered lower than a minute later to ice the victory.

“We knew it was going to be a decent recreation,” mentioned Canada goalie Samuel Montembeault, who made 27 saves. “However that large third objective for us put the load off our shoulders.”

Carcone made it 3-0 at 2:54 of the third interval after Quinn and Blais staked Canada to an early lead. 

Hartikainen lastly gave the house crowd one thing to cheer about when he tallied with 3:07 left to play, however Toffoli scored an empty-netter with 2:18 remaining.

“It is a nice group,” Montembeault mentioned. “Our objective coming into this event was to win a gold medal, and we knew we had been going to should work exhausting tonight to beat Finland in entrance of their followers.

“We’re one step nearer to our objective, and now we’re trying ahead to the semifinals.”

Emil Larmi made 27 saves for Finland.

“We tried to play with velocity on the forecheck to disrupt the Finns’ timing,” mentioned Canadian head coach Andre Tourigny. “They’re so sturdy on pucks, they’re heavy and shield the puck properly. 

“We wished to be actually aggressive after they had the puck and take possession away from them as shortly as potential.”

Finland defeated Canada 4-3 in time beyond regulation to win gold final Could. It was the third straight time that the 2 sides performed for gold at this occasion.

Canada will subsequent play Latvia, a shock 3-1 winner over perennial contender Sweden. 

“We’ve got been taking part in properly defensively and blocking a whole lot of pictures, and we have to maintain that up,” Blais mentioned. “We’ve got an excellent goalie that we’ve a ton of confidence in and we’re going to carry our greatest recreation in opposition to Latvia.”

The US will face Germany in Saturday’s different semifinal. Medal video games are scheduled for Sunday.

Finland beat Canada in 2019 however Canada gained the rematch two years later. The 2020 event was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.