North Bay’s Mike Yeo and Team Canada will be playing for Gold on Sunday at the World Championships as the Canadians edged Team USA 4-3 in the semi-final this afternoon in Moscow.
Yeo, who was fired as head coach of the Minnesota Wild in February, is an assistant coach with Team Canada. Bill Peters, is the head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes, is Team Canada’s head coach.
Canada, which is the defending gold medalists, will face Team Finland in the Gold Medal game on Sunday.
The host Russian team will face the USA in the bronze medal game.
Nashville Predators defenceman Ryan Ellis broke a 3-3 tie early in the third period as he blasted a slap shot over the shoulder of USA and New Jersey Devils netminder Keith Kincaid for the game winning tally.
Canada jumped out to a 2-0 first period lead on goals by Brendan Gallagher and Brad Marchand.
However, the young American squad responded with three goals in less than 8 minutes in the second period to take a 3-2 lead.
Derrick Brassard got the Canadians back on even terms on a late second period power play.
Canada defeated the Americans with relative ease 5-1 in the tournament opener. But the Americans poured it on in the third period as Cam Talbot kept the US off the score sheet in the final frame despite being outshot 11-4 in the period.
Former Battalion star forward Matt Duchene, won gold with Canada last spring. He believes Canada was fortunate to get by the Americans today.
"We made some mistakes tonight that almost cost us, but we were able to outlast them. It's never easy," said Duchene to IIHF.com.
”We sat back at times tonight, but fortunately we were able to outlast them.”
Team Canada will have its hands full with Finland which defeated Canada soundly 4-0 in the preliminary round.
With a win tomorrow, Yeo will earn a World Championship Gold Medal, joining former NHLer and North Bayite Craig Rivet, who won Gold with Canada back in 2003.
Puck drop will be at 1:30 p.m. ET and the game can be seen on TSN.
