Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
The Milan/Cortina Winter Olympics will conclude with a dream ice hockey final between superpowers Canada and United States on Sunday after they reached the gold medal match in contrasting style.
Nathan MacKinnon scored with 35.2 seconds left as Canada needed to come from two goals down to beat 2022 gold medallists Finland 3-2 on Friday.
The US team cruised to a 6-2 triumph over Slovakia in the second semi-final, with Jack Hughes scoring twice.
Canada are record champions with nine golds while the US have only two golds. Canada won their last two finals in 2002 and 2010 but the US may take heart from their women’s team who beat Canada for gold on Thursday.
Slovakia and Finland contest the bronze medal match on Saturday at a tournament which marks the return of National Hockey League stars to the Games for the first time since 2014.
Canada were without injured superstar Sidney Crosby on Friday and it is unclear whether the man who scored the 2010 winner at the Vancouver Games will be fit on Sunday.
“We have 48 hours to decide that, but I will tell you he’s got a better chance of playing in the gold medal game than he had playing in tonight’s game,” Canada coach Jon Cooper said.
The team escaped without him on Friday when, with 60 minutes of regulation and a power play situation expiring, MacKinnon squeezed the puck into the net between the near post and the shin pad of Finnish goalie Juuse Saros.
Hughes and Jack Eichel scored within 19 seconds midway through the second period which ended with the US 5-0 up from Hughes’ second. Brady Tkachuk completed the half dozen in the 51st, in-between Slovakia goals from Juraj Slavkovsky and Pavol Regenda.
