The Canadians needed to come out hard and clean to beat the Swedes and they did just that. They came out the gate ready to do the work it would take to win Canada's fifth straight Gold in the WJC and to a man they did not disappoint. Sweden reverted to old-school euro-antics of days gone by flopping themselves all over the ice and endeavouring to draw peanlties with their academy-worthy acting.

Swedish goalie Jacob Markstrom chewed scenery as the over-emotional, hard-done-by goalie that everyone was picking on, while at the same time crosschecking players in his crease, slashing a Canadian player's stick in two and deliberately tripping a player crossing in front of his blue ice. It was pretty sad actually, considering that Markstrom (a Florida Panther pick) is a pretty fine goalie and doesn't need all that extraneous crap to make the good stop. My favourite was his head snap back move when his own player elbowed him in the mask, in his crease. bravo Markstrom bravo .. *polite golf-clap*

The Canadians opened the scoring on the PP, when defenseman PK Subban crashed the crease and put the loose puck past Markstrom. The Canadians were .500 on their PP in this year's tournament scoring a ridiculous 21 goals in 42 attempts with the man-advantage. They also lead the tourney in PK stats, allowing only 4 PPGA while down a man or two, holding an 85.71 PK%. Jordan Eberle and Cody Hodgson got the assists on the goal.

Dustin Tokarksi put together game that a lot of fans were thinking might not be there for him, turning away 12 shots in the opening frame without allowing a goal, after allowing goals on minimal shots the past two games. There was some bad luck on a lot of those goals, but the doubters were still in force at the drop of the puck, but not at the end of the game.

The Canadians ended the first period up by only one goal, but feeling like they were in a dominant position. Just over four minutes into the second some great individual work by Angelo Esposito gave the Canadians a two goal bulge. John Tavares got the puck into the corner and Chris DiDomenico took the hit to get the puck to Esposito who wheeled out front and snapped the puck high glove side beating Markstrom with a wicked shot.

The Swedes took a penalty late in the second which carried over to the third period, where the Canadians padded their lead to three. Hodgson won the face-off back to draft eligible defenseman Ryan Ellis. Ellis made a couple of nice moves at the blue-line before feeding the puck back to Hodgson who made no mistake ripping the puck through Markstrom. The Swedes would get a goal back early in the third, but it still felt like they were scrambling to keep up and Tokarski didn't appear to be ready to allow any soft ones in this game. He turned aside 39 of 40 in the game. Joakim Andersson came out from behind the net and ripped a beauty top shelf to get the Sweden team on the board, at 8:30 of the final frame. The Canadians added two EN goals when the Swedes pulled their goalie twice late in the game. Eberle from Patrice Cormier and Hodgson from Eberle. It was icing, but the cake had already been baked and served to great enjoyment by the fans. It was a game won by hard work and intense focus by all the players and the Canadian's fifth straight Gold medal in the U-20 WJC, tying a Canadian record for the tourney.

Players of the game:

Canada: Dustin Tokarski
Sweden: Erik Karlsson

Three best players of each team selected by the team:

CAN 5 SUBBAN P K 19 TAVARES John 14 EBERLE Jordan
SWE 25 MARKSTROM Jacob 5 KARLSSON Erik 22 BACKLUND Mikael