POPRAD, Slovakia – Joel Farabee (Cicero, N.Y.) scored twice to help the U.S. Men’s National Under-18 Team defeat Finland, 4-2, here tonight in the gold-medal game of the 2017 IIHF Under-18 Men’s World Championship.
The U.S. has now captured a tournament record 14 consecutive medals, including gold medals in seven of the last nine years (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017).
I’m very proud of how hard our group worked to represent all the best traits that the USA Hockey crest embodies,†said U.S. Head Coach John Wroblewski. The team truly played for each other, their families and our country.
The U.S. opened the scoring when Brady Tkachuk (St. Louis, Mo.) stripped a Finland defender of the puck and sent a cross-crease pass to Josh Norris (Oxford, Mich.), who one-timed a shot past Finland goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukonen.
The U.S. doubled its advantage when Jacob Tortora (Victor, N.Y.) fed a puck from below the Finland goal line to Farabee, who fired a shot through Luukonen’s five hole. The U.S. took the 2-0 lead into the first intermission.
Farabee extended the U.S. lead to 3-0 with a shorthanded goal 1:03 into the second frame. Farabee controlled a backhand feed from Logan Cockerill (Brighton, Mich.) and slipped a backhand shot past Luukonen. U.S. netminder Dylan St. Cyr (Northville, Mich.) also earned an assist on the goal.
Following a Finland tally, the U.S. regained a three-goal lead with a power-play goal when Quinn Hughes (Orlando, Fla.) fed a cross-ice pass to Grant Mismash (Edina, Minn.), who wristed a shot over Luukonen’s glove. The second stanza came to an end with the U.S. leading 4-1.
Finland added a goal late in the third period to account for the 4-2 final.
St. Cyr made 22 saves on 24 shots to earn his seventh victory of the tournament.
Notes: The U.S. outshot Finland 25-24 … Team USA went 1-3 on the power play while Finland was 0-7 … Joel Farabee was honored as the U.S. Player of the Game … Team USA improved its all-time record against Finland to 9-1-0-5-0 (W-OTW-OTL-L-T) … The U.S. is now 8-2-0-3 all-time in gold-medal games games … Sean Dhooghe, Max Gildon, and Dylan St. Cyr were named to the Media All-Star Team … The U.S. has now captured gold in the first four major IIHF world championships of 2016-17, including the IIHF World Junior Championship, IIHF U18 Women’s World Championship, IIHF Women’s World Championship and IIHF U18 Men’s World Championship. No other nation has previously accomplished that feat … For complete tournament information, visit the IIHF website. Team USA News, interviews, highlights and more can be found on the Team USA website.
