Having fended off a pesky Russian team, Canada takes on the surprising Swiss for a shot at Gold

Switzerland pulled off probably the biggest upset of the tournament Thursday taking down a Finnish team that looked like a serious threat for Gold, and they’ll try and do the same to Team Canada this morning in Copenhagen. The winner of this one will take on either Sweden or the USA, and after the Canadians opened the tournament with a shootout loss to the Americans it would be sweet to get another shot at them, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

The Swiss deserve full credit for shutting down the offensive juggernaut that was Finland, and getting some timely scoring of their own. All 3 Swiss goals came in a span of under 6 minutes in their 3-2 win. They’re tight defensively, and for a team that’s struggled to score more than one game in this tournament Canada will need to find a way to break through this.

As for the Swiss, they’re going to need to find a way to stop the best player in the game, no biggie. Connor McDavid started slow, but has become a force for Canada, and his set up of Ryan O’Reilly for the winner against Russia was a thing of beauty. Canada’s going to need the goaltender (which should be Darcy Keumper) to stand tall today. Canada let the Russians tie the game 3 straight times Thursday, and while this Swiss team isn’t on par with the kind of firepower Russia possesses, they can still score.

The Canadians will be without Jaden Schwartz today. The St Louis Blues F suffered an upper body injury in the game against Russia. Schwartz had registered 4 assists in the tournament.

The Sweden/USA game is up first, and it could mean (with a Canadian win) a rematch of last year’s Gold Medal final, where the Swedes and Henrik Lundqvist ruined Canada’s shot at a 3rd straight gold in a shootout victory.