The winning goal illustrated the relentlessness of Canada in this tournament. Their top line was out for a long shift, penning in the Finns, winning battles for puck possession.
“[MacKinnon] got rewarded for the wall battle right before that,” Canada coach Jon Cooper said. “It had been a long shift for the guys, a long way to go in the change, but he won that wall battle, kept everything alive and eventually it gets around to McDavid, and he throws it around again. [McDavid] is probably not giving himself enough credit.”
Finland unsuccessfully challenged the MacKinnon goal for offside. When it failed, Canada was on its way to performing another Houdini act on the game’s biggest stage.
“You can’t just be a team that plays well with the lead, you have to be a team that can battle through adversity, battle hard when you are down and not change your game no matter what the score is,” Canada forward Sam Bennett said. “We showed again that we can do that.”
