Canada settled for silver at the Spengler Cup in Davos, Switzerland, losing 4-3 to SKA St. Petersburg of Russian in Friday’s (Dec. 31) final.
Royston’s Brett McLean finished tied for top spot in Canadian scoring with a goal and four assists. His goal of the tourney set the stage for a wild finish in the gold medal game.
McLean cut the Russian squad’s lead to 3-2 with a power-play goal at 18:38 of the third. But captain Maxim Sushinskiy scored his second of the game into the empty net at 18:57 to restore SKA St. Petersburg’s two-goal advantage before Josh Holden rounded out the scoring with two seconds left in regulation time.
After beating host HC Davos 4-0 in the semifinals Thursday night, Canada was back on the ice against the Russian team at noon local time.
“We picked our spots to be aggressive, we did that well and we were patient when we couldn’t be and tried to turn pucks over in the neutral zone, which we did,” said Canadian coach Mark Messier. “We had our opportunities and I think under different circumstances the outcome is different.”
Every team was given a day off during the preliminary round, but Canada’s came on the opening day of the event. That meant the squad then had to play all its games in consecutive days.
SKA St. Petersburg’s win marks the third straight year a Russian team has captured the title. Canada was making its ninth championship appearance in 11 years and its 12th overall but first since 2007.
Former NHL players Alexei Yashin and Maxim Afinogenov scored second-period goals to lead St. Petersburg to victory.
Yashin, on the power play, and Afinogenov scored to give SKA St. Petersburg a 3-1 lead after Micki Dupont pulled the Canadians into a 1-1 tie. But twice in the third Canada rallied to make it a one-goal game.
“You could look at it as we ran out of time or could say we could’ve used a little more time,” Messier told Hockey Canada. “Playing five games in 4 1/2 days with a quick turnaround . . . you never want to make excuses but the reality is the schedule certainly didn’t help us.”
Canada’s Jeff Deslauriers captured the tournament’s top goalie award while Travis Roche was named one of its best defencemen.
ICE CHIPS SKA St. Petersburg finished the tournament undefeated, winning all four of its games although it had to rally from a 3-0 deficit to beat Geneve-Servette 4-3 in the semifinals Thursday ... Canada suffered its only other loss to Davos during the preliminary round earlier in the week ... the Spengler Cup, which debuted in 1923, is the world’s oldest pro hockey tournament ...