Brad Marchand and Stefan Legein both scored in the final 10 minutes and Canada rallied to beat Finland 4-2 in the quarter-finals of the Under-20 World Ice Hockey Championship on Wednesday, keeping alive their bid for a fourth straight title.
Russia defeated the Czech Republic 4-1 in Wednesday's other quarter-final to clinch a semi-final meeting with Sweden. Canada will face the US in today's other semi-final.
John Tavares converted on a power-play for his fourth goal of the tournament to start Canada's rally from an early deficit. His goal midway through the second and Steven Stamkos' tally 2 minutes, 20 seconds into the third helped the Canadians overcome Juuso Puustinen's fourth goal of the tournament 7 minutes, 23 seconds after the opening faceoff.
Jan-Mikael Juutilainen pulled Finland back into a 2-2 tie at 5 minutes, 42 seconds of the third, getting credit for the goal when goalkeeper Steve Mason deflected his pass from behind the goal into his own net.
Marchand scored the eventual winner at 10 minutes, 32 seconds, and Legein secured the win into an empty net with 30 seconds left.
Russia jumped to a 3-0 lead behind second-period goals by Yakov Seleznev, Viktor Tikhonov -- his fifth in the tournament -- and Nikita Filatov. Meidl gave the Czechs a bit of hope, cutting the Russian lead to 3-1 with 2 minutes, 40 seconds remaining in the period.
But Anton Korolev restored a three-goal bulge midway through the third and Russia stayed out of the penalty box the rest of the way to reach the semi-finals.
Sweden and the US qualified for the semi-finals by winning their respective preliminary round groups.
Finland and the Czech Republic will meet for fifth place.
In the relegation round, Slovakia beat Switzerland 5-2 while Kazakhstan topped Denmark 6-3. The winners secured spots at the elite championship with six points at the relegation group and one more game to play. Denmark and Switzerland are still without points and will be relegated and replaced by Germany and Latvia at next year's U20 championship in Ottawa, Canada.
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