By Philip O’Connor
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Winger Conor Garland scored twice as Team USA came from a goal down to ease past Finland 5-2 on Thursday, booking their spot in Saturday’s semi-finals of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championship.
After withstanding early Finnish pressure, the Americans took the lead at the 4:50 mark when Logan Cooley slipped a beautiful pass across the ice for Garland to rattle home but, with Cooley later sin-binned for delaying the game, the Finns struck back through Eeli Tolvanen.
The Finns took a 2-1 lead with a Patrick Puistola goal that capped another well-executed power play but the U.S. levelled when Zeev Buium swept home the rebound from a Mattie Beniers shot and they went ahead when Garland’s fortuitous effort deflected off the stick of Mikael Seppala and into the net.
Shane Pinto gave the Finns a mountain to climb when he scored six minutes into the second period to make it 4-2 and Clayton Keller fired into an empty net with just under three minutes left to condemn 2022 champs Finland to a third straight exit at the quarter-final stage.
“I think in the first half we were a little frustrated but as the game went on we stuck to our game, we got our chances and we capitalised,” a delighted Pinto told Reuters. “The Finnish, they do a good job of defending. They don’t make many mistakes but when they do we had to capitalise on them, and I thought we did.”
In the afternoon’s other quarter-final in Herning, Denmark, Switzerland thrashed Austria 6-0, and the Americans’ opponents will become clear after Canada take on the Danes in Herning and Sweden host the Czech Republic in Stockholm.
“Whoever we play, we play, and hopefully we bring our best and we can keep winning. We have a good hockey team, so it should be fun,” Pinto said.
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor; editing by Clare Fallon)
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