It’s the final day of the 2025 World Juniors in Ottawa. By day’s end, we’ll have a champion.
Team USA hopes to repeat as gold medalists at the World Juniors for the first time in their history at the tournament. They’ll need to upend Finland to do so, and the Finns defeated the U.S. in the preliminary round. Meanwhile, Group B’s top two teams — Sweden and Czechia — will lock horns in the bronze medal game.
Let’s check in on both games.
Today’s schedule
• Czechia vs. Sweden 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT
• Finland vs. USA, 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT
Finland vs. USA
USA defeated Czechia 4-1 in the semifinals and now has a shot at history — not to mention an opportunity for redemption against Finland, the only team that beat them in the preliminary round.
While flipping the script on Finland is the focus, the historical significance of a gold medal win has long been part of the team’s motivation heading into the tournament. Coach David Carle said they discussed it at the group’s first meeting in the summer.
“We spoke about that pretty honestly, that our country has never done that … a lot goes into getting back to that opportunity,” Carle said. “And so you start with the end in mind and then you kind of build your process from there. And our guys have believed and been on board throughout and we’ve continued to get better and better. And I think that’s what I’m most proud of, to put ourselves in this situation. We’ve earned it and we get to go lay it all on the line tomorrow evening.”
The Americans learned a lot from that 4-3 overtime loss to the Finns and hope they can use it as fuel Sunday night.
”I think their goalie’s playing extremely well, their defense has been great and they’ve had contributions from up and down the lineup so we’ve got to address what’s been working for them and find a way to stop it and just play our game,” captain Ryan Leonard said after the semifinal win.
“We know what they’re going to do,” USA defenseman Cole Hutson said. “They’re a really good team and we’ll be ready for that. … We’re pretty familiar with them, so yeah, we’ll just play our game and hopefully Trey (Augustine) has another big one tomorrow.”
Hutson and forward Gabe Perreault both have a tournament-leading nine points. Regardless of the final result, the USA has already made a little bit of history: With his 11th win Saturday night, in which he stopped 26 of 27 shots, Augustine became the winningest U.S. goaltender at the World Juniors.
“It’s so special. Just the whole list of goalies that have played for our country. But obviously looking at the gold medal game tomorrow, that’s my focus,” Augustine said.
Finland hasn’t won a gold medal since 2019. Following a hard-fought 4-3 overtime win against Sweden, the team wasn’t too worried about who its opponent would be the following night.
“We are full of full of confidence. I think we can win against any team in the tournament. Just have to play our own game like we did today,” said Benjamin Rautiainen, who scored the overtime winner.
The Finns lost 4-0 to Canada to open the tournament but have been rolling ever since. Entering the tournament, they weren’t exactly favored to make the gold medal game over the likes of Canada, Sweden and Czechia.
Finland goaltender Petteri Rimpinen said being an underdog has only motivated the team.
“It just gives some fire to the group,” he said. “Nobody believed in us before the tournament, so this is great and everything from now on, it’s just focus on winning.”
Rimpinen has a leading .939 save percentage and could emerge as the goaltender of the tournament, a feat he says he feels “just pure emptiness” over.
“I can’t even think about it right now. It’s unbelievable that we are playing in the final in the first place. So but of course it would be a dream come true,” Rimpinen said. “I can’t believe it. Like someone’s going to hit me or something because I can’t believe that this is, like, true.”
Czechia vs. Sweden
Czechia is seeking a medal at the World Juniors for the third consecutive year, but they were hoping for a color different from their last two: bronze and silver. Instead, the loss against the Americans has them in the bronze medal game for the second consecutive year.
“It’s tough,” Czechia captain Eduard Sale said. “U.S. played pretty good structurally.
“We were bad. Not bad. But we didn’t play our game and we didn’t have energy. So, we need to be better next game.”
“I think the U.S. played a really strong game,” Czechia head coach Patrik Augusta said. “They didn’t really push us too hard. But they played so smart and they were waiting for their chances. They weren’t cheating for them and we gave it to them at the end.”
Meanwhile, Sweden will play for bronze as they did during the 2023 tournament in the Canadian Maritimes. The Swedes have one gold medal to show for in their entire history at the World Juniors. They too are trying to wash away disappointment after losing to rival Finland in overtime during their semifinal encounter.
“We don’t want to go home with fourth place. We want to win tomorrow,” Sweden’s Otto Stenberg said after his team’s loss on Saturday.
The last time these two teams met was in the final game of group stage play. Sweden edged the Czechs on New Year’s Eve with a 4-2 victory to give themselves top seed in Group B. Both teams also played each other for bronze at the 2022 World Juniors in Edmonton, with Sweden getting the win. A win for Czechia would be their second consecutive bronze medal at the tournament, having won bronze in Gothenburg last year at the expense of Finland.
There’s also an opportunity for Czechia forward Jakub Stancl to end his time in Ottawa as the tournament’s goals and points leader. Entering Sunday’s game, he’s in a five-way tie for first in points (9) while also leading the tournament in goals (6).
(Photo of Kasper Halttunen and Cole Hutson: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
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