Morozov Continues Quest For WJC Gold

The 2019 IIHF World Junior Championship in Vancouver has reached its final four after Wednesday's quarterfinal matchups. The Vegas Golden Knights had five prospects competing in the quarterfinals, and 2018 second-round pick Ivan Morozov and Team Russia will move on to the semifinal.
Morozov had two shots on goal in 16:32 of ice time as Russia dominated Slovakia in an 8-3 win. Russia will advance to face the United States on Jan. 4 with a trip to the gold medal game on the line.
Cody Glass and Canada reached overtime against Finland in the quarterfinals, but they couldn't solve Finnish goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and the host nation was eliminated from the tournament. Glass did everything possible on the final shift of the game as he made a beautiful, no-look feed to defenseman Noah Dobson who seemingly had an open net, but his stick broke on the shot attempt. Finland came back the other way and, though Glass outraced everyone to get back in position defensively, scored on a perfect shot from Toni Utunen. Glass finished the tournament with two goals and four assists in five games.

Erik Brannstrom and Lucas Elvenes helped Sweden to four wins in the round-robin portion of the tournament. In their quarterfinal matchup against Switzerland, the Swedes put 41 shots on the Swiss net but Luca Hollenstein stopped them all en route to a 2-0 upset. Brannstrom scored four goals while Elvenes posted one goal and two assists in the competition.
Jiri Patera didn't see action in the Czech Republic's quarterfinal tilt against the United States. The Czechs were eliminated by the Americans by a final score of 3-1. Patera got into one game in the tournament and stopped 16 shots in 40 minutes of play.
Team Denmark is still playing, but not in the games they'd hoped to be in. Jonas Rondbjerg is helping Denmark remain in the tournament for next year in the relegation games against Kazakhstan.
Morozov and Russia face the U.S. at 1 p.m. PT Friday while Finland and Switzerland meet at 5 p.m. to set up the gold medal game.