By CBC Sports, cbc.ca, Updated: January 5, 2011 10:44 PM
Russian juniors win gold in Canadian collapse
For the second year in a row, Team Canada has suffered a devastating defeat in the gold-medal match of the world junior championship.
Canada was up three goals entering the final 20 minutes, but Russia scored five times to win 5-3 and claim its first under-20 title since 2003 before a disappointed mostly-Canadian crowd of 18,690 at HSBC Arena on Wednesday night.
Artemi Panarin scored his second goal of the game with only four minutes and 38 seconds remaining to provide the Russian juniors with the winning goal.
Nikita Dvurechenski added an insurance marker in a stunning collapse by Canada.
What appeared to be another dominant Canadian performance — in the same vein that Canada defeated the U.S. 4-1 in the semifinals and Switzerland by the same score in the quarterfinals — turned into bitter defeat with Russia’s third big comeback.
The Russians had stormed back to defeat Finland in the quarterfinals and overcame a late-game one-goal deficit to survive Sweden in a shootout in the semifinals.
Canada had exhibited determination, discipline and selflessness in the first two periods to build a 3-0 lead.
Captain Ryan Ellis, who collected his 25th career world junior point, scored on the power play on a pinpoint pass from Brayden Schenn. Carter Ashton scored from a bad angle with 13.5 seconds remaining in the first period.
Schenn scored his eighth game of the tournament in the second period to give him 18 points for the tournament, a total that matches the Canadian record set by Dale McCourt in 1977.
But then Russia went to work. Artemi Panarin and Maxim Kitsyn scored 13 seconds apart early in the third period and captain Vladimir Tarasenko drew his team even before the final period was 7:29 old.
With files from The Canadian Press
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