{"id":392724,"date":"2026-01-05T08:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T08:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/392724\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T08:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T08:20:07","slug":"world-junior-championship-roundup-czechia-tops-canada-reaches-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/392724\/","title":{"rendered":"World Junior Championship roundup: Czechia tops Canada, reaches final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Czechia 6, Canada 4: Tomas Poletin<\/a> (New York Islanders) scored with 1:14 remaining in the third period to help Czechia advance to the gold-medal game against Sweden at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul on Monday (8:30 p.m. ET; NHLN, TSN).<\/p>\n

Poletin was battling at the net front with Canada forward Michael Misa<\/a> (San Jose Sharks) when a shot by Czechia forward Maxmilian Curran<\/a> (Colorado Avalanche) deflected off his skate and into the net for a 5-4 lead.<\/p>\n

Vojtech Cihar<\/a> (Los Angeles Kings) scored two goals, and Curran and Adam Benak<\/a> (Minnesota Wild) each had a goal and two assists for Czechia. Adam Titlbach (2026 draft) scored, and Michal Orsulak (2026 draft) made 20 saves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were ready, the guys had energy,\u201d Czechia coach Patrik Augusta said. \u201cThere was a lot of energy in the room before we got out, even more than last year, I felt. We played really good 5-on-5. We didn’t want to give up power-play chances for Canada, we knew how great they are on the puck with the man advantage.<\/p>\n

\u2018I’d say we were a little more hungry and the guys just showed they are a team, showed a lot of character and a lot of will to beat them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zayne Parekh<\/a> (Calgary Flames), Tij Iginla<\/a> (Utah Mammoth), Porter Martone<\/a> (Philadelphia Flyers) and Cole Reschny<\/a> (Calgary Flames) scored for Canada, and Michael Hage<\/a> (Montreal Canadiens) had two assists. Jack Ivankovic<\/a> (Nashville Predators) made 31 saves.<\/p>\n

Canada will play Finland for the bronze medal Monday (4:30 p.m. ET; NHLN, TSN).<\/p>\n

\u201cGave up too many goals,\u201d Canada coach Dale Hunter said. \u201cPlayed on our heels a bit. But we got battling, battled back a couple times, came back on them. Got to play better defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Czechia has defeated Canada in the medal round in three straight World Juniors, after victories in the quarterfinals of the 2024 and 2025 WJC.<\/p>\n

Iginla made it 1-0 Canada with a power-play goal at 15:14. A Parekh shot from the blue line went wide of the net and kicked off the boards back into the slot. Misa and Jett Luchanko<\/a> (Philadelphia Flyers) fought for possession at the side of the net, with Misa passing through the crease to Iginla for the goal.<\/p>\n

Curran tied to 1-1 at 16:56.<\/p>\n

Titlbach put Czechia ahead 2-1 at 3:44 of the second period. A one-timer by Max Psenicka (Utah Mammoth) from the right face-off circle was blocked, but the puck came back to him, and he found Titlbach in the slot for a shot that went past Ivankovic’s glove.<\/p>\n

Parekh scored during a 5-on-3 power play to tie it 2-2 at 12:38, scoring from the right face-off circle through a Reschny screen.<\/p>\n

Hage had two penalty shot chances to put his team ahead at 18:04. After missing on his first chance, referees ruled he had been tripped by Orsulak and gave him another attempt. But as he skated in, the puck rolled off his stick as he tried a backhand deke.<\/p>\n

Benak finished a 2-on-1 rush to put Czechia ahead 3-2 at 19:17. A Canada giveaway at center ice led to Curran leading the odd-man break-in. He made a pass through the seam to Benak, who finished with a shot past Ivankovic’s left pad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just our confidence was there,\u201d Benak said. \u201cWe knew that we are a good team. We know that we can play hockey, and we just knew that we will win today. So that\u2019s what we did. And we are happy for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reschny tied the game 3-3 at 3:59 of the third period. Hage passed the puck to Reschny along the goal line on the right side of the Czechia zone, and he stepped in front and stuffed it under Orsulak.<\/p>\n

Cihar put Czechia ahead 4-3 at 9:49 when he took a pass from Vaclav Nestrasil<\/a> (Chicago Blackhawks), cut around Canada forward Caleb Desnoyers<\/a> (Utah Mammoth) as he skated to the net, and lifted the puck over Ivankovic’s left shoulder.<\/p>\n

Martone tied it for Canada 4-4 at 17:19 when he banged in the rebound of a Harrison Brunicke<\/a> (Pittsburgh Penguins) shot from the net front.<\/p>\n

After Poletin’s goal, Cihar scored an empty-net power-play goal at 19:34.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Czechia 6, Canada 4: Tomas Poletin (New York Islanders) scored with 1:14 remaining in the third period to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-392724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}