BOSTON — Crew Canada defeated Finland, 5-3, in its last 4 Nations Face-Off round-robin sport to advance to the championship bout at TD Backyard on Thursday night time.
A rematch your entire hockey world might be tuning in for — particularly after the electrical begin on Saturday night time. USA and Canada dropped the gloves 3 times within the first 9 seconds of their sport, and the People skated away with the 3-1 victory.
Crew USA is the favourite to win the trophy and gold medals, per FanDuel Sportsbook, a reality Canada head coach Jon Cooper downplayed.
“Betting has turn out to be fairly an trade now. It’s wonderful that we sit right here in a press convention speaking about playing,” Cooper quipped. “So, I don’t care who’s favored, who’s not. We got here in right here to win this. … I don’t know who’s making the traces, however I’m actually trying ahead to the sport.
“For this reason we got here right here and regardless if different folks on the market say we’re the underdogs, all people in that room thinks that we have now a very good likelihood to win.”
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Cooper added having one other “crack” at Crew USA wasn’t a motivating issue for Canada getting into its sport towards Finland.
“I can’t sit right here and say that was the case,” he mentioned. “Even when the U.S. wasn’t within the last, we wouldn’t be like that. We don’t wish to be that. We wished this, and we got here, and it simply occurred to be towards the staff that beat us after the fireworks that went off on Saturday. So, I believe it needs to be a fairly good sport.”
The Tampa Bay Lightning coach mentioned Canada must play extra prefer it did towards Finland if the staff desires to beat Crew USA.
“A whole lot of the issues we did tonight,” Cooper mentioned. “A whole lot of this sport is about administration. Typically, it’s not as enjoyable to look at. There’s loads of exhausting work as a result of, for a lot of the sport, you could be working with out the puck.
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“We didn’t do this very nicely towards the U.S. within the first sport and made some changes in it tonight. It labored in our favor. … We’ve to place stress on them, and I didn’t assume we did that sufficient.”
Cooper continued: “There was loads of credit score to them, too. They’ve an exceptional staff. They defend and play exhausting. I believe you’re going to see two actually evenly matched groups exit. The Metropolis of Boston might be handled to one thing particular Thursday night time.”
