VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Cayden Primeau (Voorhees, N.J./Northeastern University) made 34 saves as Oliver Wahlstrom (Quincy, Mass./Boston College) and Sasha Chmelevski (Northville, Mich./Ottawa 67's) scored to help the U.S. National Junior Team advance to the gold-medal game of the 2019 IIHF World Junior Championship with a 2-1 semifinal victory over Russia.
"When we got together on the (Dec.) 14th, we said this was the goal, to make it to the gold-medal game and our players made that a reality here tonight," said Mike Hastings (Crookston, Minn./Minnesota State), head coach of the 2019 U.S. National Junior Team. "Give credit to Russia, who gave us everything we could handle. We battled through, earned a hard-fought win and now have a chance to go after what we came here for and that's a gold medal."
With the win, the U.S. (5-0-1-0/W-OTW-OTL-L) will play for gold tomorrow against the winner of the Finland-Switzerland semifinal that is currently under way. Puck drop tomorrow (Jan. 5) is set for 5 p.m. local time (8 p.m. ET) here at Rogers Arena and will be televised live on NHL Network.
Tonight's win secures a fourth-straight medal finish for the United States, the first time it has ever accomplished the feat. Team USA won gold in 2017 and earned bronze-medal finishes in 2016 and 2018.
For the complete game recap, click here.
Watch the game highlights below.
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