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Two 6-foot-6 goalies stood tall in a bronze-medal game at the world juniors that lasted more than three hours on Sunday.
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Finally, Michael Hrabal and his Czechia mates prevailed over Marcus Gidlof and the rest of the Swedes.
Eduard Sale’s second goal in a 14-round shootout gave Czechia a 3-2 victory and their third medal in a row at the worlds.
Hrabal was a standout the entire tournament and carried his strong play into Sunday by stopping 32 shots through three periods and overtime.
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“It’s fun every time I’m on the ice.” said Hrabal, a second-round pick of the Arizona Coyotes in 2023. “It was the last game of my youth national career, so I tried to enjoy it as much as possible. The guys scored more goals than I let in. That’s why we won, and now we going to celebrate.”
Czechia, which lost to the U.S. in Saturday’s semifinals, eliminated Canada in the quarter-finals on Thursday.
Czechia had won bronze and silver in the past two Christmas-time tournaments.
Sale, the Czechia captain and a first-round pick of the Seattle Kraken in 2023, scored one of his team’s goals in regulation time while Jacub Stancl, the tournament’s scoring leader, had the other.
“He’s a player you want to have on your team, not against,” Hrabal said of Sale. “He’s a goal scorer, and in the whole tournament he showed how good he is. It’s great for him; to have three medals out of three (world juniors) is incredible. So I’m happy for him. The NHL is waiting for him.”
Vegas Golden Knights 2023 first-rounder David Edstrom had both of Sweden’s goals.
Playing a quick turnaround game 24 hours after losing the semifinal to Finland was emotionally difficult for Sweden, which finished atop the Group B standings in the preliminary round with an unbeaten 4-0 record.
“We just wanted to forget what happened (Saturday) night, how we lost the game, and take it as a new game today,” said Edstrom. “Unfortunately, we didn’t win today.
“It felt like you didn’t have the same energy as in the group stage when we had a lot of energy and everybody was on boards. We were not as good as we can (be).”
Sweden went home with silver last year after losing to the U.S. in the championship game.
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