2017 IIHF Men’s World Championship: Quarterfinals Recap & Semifinals Preview

TEAM USA

Like we touched on in the last preview, a lucky bounce or a few too many penalties could make or break Team USA’s run at a medal this summer. Unfortunately for the Coyotes representatives, playing under captain Connor Murphy, team USA’s tournament stopped short of the medal round this year.

After failing to score a single goal, team USA fell 2-0 to Finland in the quarterfinals. It was a game where team Finland came out to play, while team USA did not. In a single game elimination tournament, team USA’s second loss sent the guys off to enjoy the rest of their summer.

Overall in the tournament, the Coyotes’ representatives stats were as follows:

Christian Dvorak: 1 G, 1pt in 8 GP

Clayton Keller: 5 G, 2 A, 7pts in 8 GP

Connor Murphy: 1 G, 1 A, 2pts in 8 GP

TEAM SWEDEN

Fortunately for all you Coyotes fans who want someone to cheer for at Worlds, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and team Sweden managed to be more successful than team USA.

While Ekman-Larsson had been out for two games of the round-robin prelims due to illness, he showed well in the quarterfinals, notching the lone assist on William Nylander’s GWG against team Switzerland.

That assist brings Ekman-Larsson’s stats total to: 2 G, 2 A, 4 pts in 6 GP.

Ekman-Larsson will be back in action at 10:15 AM MST on Saturday to take on Team Finland in the Semifinals. This should be a high action game, as we now know what happened when Finland took on a team ranked higher than them. In single game eliminations, the pressure is higher and the hockey more intense.

TEAM GERMANY

Though Tobias Rieder is no longer active for team Germany, we figured we would update you that team Germany has been eliminated as well before the medal round in a 2-1 loss to team Canada.