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Gold-medal game
Czechia vs. Canada (6:30 p.m. ET) --Connor Bedard, the projected No. 1 pick in the 2023 Upper Deck NHL Draft, has a chance to cap one of the greatest World Junior performances with a gold medal.
Bedard had a goal and an assist in the win against the U.S., and the forward leads the tournament in goals (nine), assists (14) and points (23). He has a point on 23 of Canada's 37 goals,
and has set a bevy of Canada WJC records
.
However, Bedard has been steadfast in saying his only focus is winning a gold medal. And making it sweeter would be a win against Czechia, which defeated Canada 5-2 on the first day of the tournament.
"It's obviously awesome, especially to play the Czechs again, obviously, the team that beat us, is exciting," Bedard said "But that being said, we didn't come here to make to the finals. We came here to win the gold."
Bedard has at least two points in all but one of the games here; he had one goal against Czechia.
Defenseman Stanislav Svozil (Columbus Blue Jackets) helped slow Bedard in that Dec. 26 game, and he's looking forward to doing it again. Svozil and Bedard are teammates with Regina in the Western Hockey League, and they chatted briefly after Czechia's win against Sweden.
"I just say good luck, I want to play you in the finals. I want to beat you again," Svozil said.
Bedard replied: "I think there's going to be a lot of chirping between us, but all good fun. I saw him before our game, after his, so he was pretty fired up. I told him I'll see him tomorrow night so I'm glad it ended up working out that way."
Beating Canada again would give Czechia its first World Juniors gold since it won the second of two straight tournaments in 2001.
Leading the way will be goalie Tomas Suchanek, who tops all goalies at the tournament with a 1.30 goals-against average and is second with a .938 save percentage in six games.
"For me this tournament is absolutely everything," Suchanek (2023 draft eligible) said. "I was dreaming about this as a child to be here, and to go to the gold-medal game, after 22 years, in our country it's something incredible. It's just amazing."
It will be the first medal of any kind for Czechia since it won bronze in 2005, but Suchanek pushed back on any talk of his team being the underdog.
"They are playing at home, the fans don't really like us here, they always cheering for someone else," he said. "But it's going to be fun to beat them a second time in the same tournament."
