The IIHF World Men’s Championship will come to a close today, once again featuring a gold medal match between Canada and Finland.

The Canadian team moved on to the final after defeating Czechia 6-1 yesterday.

It’s the third tournament in a row to have a final with Canada against  Finland. Each team has won the gold medal once in the past two, so this game is a sort of tie breaker. The TV broadcast is on TSN4 at 1:00 p.m. ET. The bronze medal game is between the USA and Czechia, and it’s on TSN at 8:00 a.m.

The Newfoundland Growlers season came to an end last night, with the Florida Everblades winning the conference final with four games to one.

The Growlers put up a fight through this game, taking the Everbaldes all the way to overtime, with the final score of 6-5. One of those five Growlers goals came from Leafs prospect Pavel Gogolev.

The New York Rangers defeated the Carolina Hurricanes last night to tie their series 3-3. That means the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs will come to an end tomorrow with their game #7.

The Hurricanes now have an interesting choice in goal. Antti Raanta was actually pulled from the net in their 5-2 loss, with backup Pyotr Kochetkov put in, though he was no help against the shooting accuracy of Artemi Panarin.

Sitting there waiting is Frederik Andersen, who is apparently ready to return from his injury. Do you throw him back in on a game #7 after not playing for weeks? Or do you try Raanta again? That’s a tough choice.

Either way, the Hurricanes have not won a single game on the road in these playoffs. All their wins have been in Raleigh. The Canes are 7-0 at home and 0-6 on the road. Game #7 is at their home arena in Raleigh.

Canes’ road woes continue in game 6 loss

On the western side of the league, their conference final will begin Tuesday, with the Edmonton Oilers @ Colorado Avalanche at a convenient 8:00 p.m. ET, which is 6:00 local time. A bit early for a game out there, but I guess they think we will all be tuning in here.

From The Branches