The Canadian bench erupts as they defeat Russia in a shootout to advance to the gold-medal game at the world junior hockey championship. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)Canada's hopes for a fifth consecutive gold medal at the world junior hockey championship remain alive.
John Tavares and Jordan Eberle, who forced overtime with his second regulation goal of the night, beat Russian goaltender Vadim Zhelobnyuk in the shootout to cap a 6-5 win Saturday night at Ottawa's Scotiabank Place.
Canadian netminder Dustin Tokarski stopped Pavel Chernov in the shootout while Dimitri Kugryshev hit the post as Canada pushed through to Monday's gold-medal match (7:30 p.m. ET) against Sweden, which defeated Slovakia 5-3 earlier Saturday.
Canada downed the Swedes 3-2 in overtime in last year's championship at the world juniors in Pardubice, Czech Republic.
The Canadians have reached the final eight years in a row and haven't lost in five meetings with Sweden in the medal round.
They will attempt to tie the record for consecutive gold set between 1993 and 1997.
It appeared as though Canada and Sweden wouldn't square off this time around until Tavares lifted a backhander from the boards in the final seconds of the third period that Eberle picked up and deposited into the Russia net over a sprawling Zhelobnyuk with 5.4 seconds left on the clock.
Cody Hodgson, Tyler Myers and P.K. Subban had chances to score in OT with Canada pressing but Zelobnyuk, who made 36 saves in regulation, came up big in an effort to get the Russians in the gold-medal game for the fourth time in five years.
Brett Sonne, Patrice Cormier and Angelo Esposito had the other Canadian goals, while Evander Kane counted two assists and Tokarski stopped 23 of 28 shots in regulation.
Dmitry Klopov notched a pair of goals for Russia, which will battle Slovakia in Monday's bronze-medal contest (3:30 p.m. ET). Klopov's second goal came with two minutes 20 seconds left in regulation.
Maxim Goncharov, Evgeny Grachev and Sergei Andronov rounded out the scoring for the Russians.
Russia had done its homework on Canada's power play, which was running at 60 per cent heading into the game. The Russians pushed the Canadians toward the boards, pressured the quarterbacks and quickly covered off the open man.
They held Canada to one power-play goal on nine chances.
