Julius Miettinen doesn\u2019t have to be reminded of what happened a year ago. Or the year before that.<\/p>\n
Or the year before that.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-4, 210-pound power forward from Finland scored a key goal in the third period on Dec. 29, 2024, when the Finns knocked off the United States, 4-3, in overtime in Group A play at the World Junior Championships in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.<\/p>\n
He was there a week later, too, when his Finnish team built a 3-1 lead against the U.S. in the gold medal game, only to see the Americans tie the score in the second period, then win the game and the gold medal on Teddy Stiga\u2019s goal in overtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter last year, the guys have wanted revenge, and this is the perfect timing for it,\u201d Miettinen said with a smile after Finland lost to Canada 7-4 in the final game of Group B play on Wednesday night at 3M Arena at Mariucci.<\/p>\n
The loss to Canada set up a rematch that neither Finland nor the U.S. expected to happen in the 2026 World Junior Championship quarterfinals. But Finland finished third in Group B, behind Canada and Czechia. The U.S. finished second in Group A after a 6-3 loss to Sweden on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
That means the rivals will meet in the quarterfinals at 5 p.m. Friday at Grand Casino Arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll have the home crowd; everyone\u2019s against us,\u201d Miettinen said. \u201cSo, we have to go show everyone why we\u2019re the best team here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friday will mark the fourth consecutive year that the U.S. and Finland have met in a big spot in the World Juniors.<\/p>\n
Last year, it was the gold medal game. In 2024, the Americans beat Finland 3-2 in the semifinals. The U.S. went on to beat Sweden 6-2 in the gold medal game, while Finland finished out of the medals.<\/p>\n
In 2023, the U.S. blew out Finland 6-2 in Group play to win Group B, while the Finns finished second in the group. The Americans won bronze and Finland finished without a medal.<\/p>\n
So, while this year\u2019s quarterfinal matchup isn\u2019t the most palatable for Finland \u2014 or the U.S. \u2014 the Finns don\u2019t have to look far for motivation. Miettinen, no relation to former Wild forward Antti Miettinen, said the Finns know they\u2019ll have a vocal U.S. crowd pulling for the Americans to hand them another blow in a big game at Grand Casino Arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can say, that gives you a lot of energy,\u201d Miettinen said, \u201cand we can use that energy to our advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Briefly<\/p>\n
Sweden\u2019s power play has been staggeringly good, converting on 50% of its attempts (9 for 18). \u2026 Sweden\u2019s Lucas Pettersson was a plus-2 on Wednesday and raised his on-ice rating to a plus-7 in four games. Pettersson is signed with the Anaheim Ducks and currently plays for Bryn\u00e4s IF in the SHL.\u00a0 \u2026 U.S. forward and North Dakota freshman Will Zellers has five goals in four WJC games. \u2026 Switzerland is tied for first with Sweden for the fewest goals allowed in four pool play games.<\/p>\n
QUARTERFINALS<\/p>\n
All games on Friday.<\/p>\n
Sweden vs. Latvia, Grand Casino Arena, 1 p.m.
\nCzechia vs. Switzerland, 3M Arena at Mariucci, 3:30 p.m.
\nUSA vs. Finland, Grand Casino Arena, 5 p.m.
\nCanada vs. Slovakia, 3M Arena at Mariucci, 7:30 p.m<\/p>\n
Forum News Service reporters Madeline Warren, Brad Elliott Schlossman, and Jared Rubado also contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Julius Miettinen doesn\u2019t have to be reminded of what happened a year ago. Or the year before that.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2662,3,99,18068,21,19,22,20,25,24,182812],"class_list":["post-382506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-college-sports","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-uncategorized","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-world-juniors-hockey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}