WJC Game Day: The Medal Games

We’re finally here at the final day of the 2013 edition of the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships. Four Flames prospects have the chance to fly home with medals, although three of them won’t need to win to bring back hardware.

The morning begins with Canada tangling with Russia in a rematch of their round robin meeting that saw Canada win a tight 4-1 affair. Canada won bronze last year, while Russia took silver. This game kicks off at 4am ET (2pm MT).

Tyler Wotherspoon is the lone Flame in this tilt. He’s performed quite well and was arguably the best Canadian blueliner in their semi-final loss to the United States. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins leads Canada with 11 points, while Jonathan Huberdeau (7 points), Ryan Strome and Mark Scheifele (6 points each) have also scored quite a bit.

The Russian leading scorers are Nikita Kucherov (8 points), Mikhail Grigorenko and Nail Yakupov (6 points each) and they’ve relied upon a very strong goaltending tandem of Andrei Makarov and Andrei Vasilevski.

At 8am ET (6am MT), the United States will try to reclaim gold when they face the defending champions from Sweden.

Team USA might as well be called the Future Flames, as America’s back-up goalie (Jon Gillies), shut-down defender (Patrick Sieloff) and sniping winger (Johnny Gaudreau) are all Calgary draftees. Gaudreau has had an incredible few days and he’s notched 9 points in his last three contests and leads the USA in scoring. Also up there for the States are Alex Galchenyuk, Jacob Trouba and J.T. Miller, each with 8 points.

The Swedes leading scorers include Emil Molin and Sebastian Collberg (each with 6 points). They haven’t scored nearly as much as the Americans and have relied upon goalie Niklas Lundstrom to keep them in games.