Olympic Athletes of Russia and Finland faceoff to decide Olympic bronze medal Wednesday, February 21.
Just as everyone predicted, the Women’s Ice Hockey gold medal will be decided between the United States and Canada. The United States beat Finland 5-0 and Canada beat Russia 5-0 to move on. This means that Finland will play Russia for the bronze medal. Do not let the semifinal game scores fool you, both teams are very talented.
Finland has had stellar play from their goaltender Noora Raty who posted a .911 save percentage and are offensively led by Riikka Valila who had four goals and one assist. They opened the tournament with a 3-1 loss to the United States and a 4-1 loss to Canada. after beating the Olympic Athletes of Russia 5-1 to close out the group stage. In the quarterfinals, Finland topped their European rivals 7-2 before losing 5-0 to the United States in the semifinals.
Russia struggled through the group stage losing to the United States, Canada, and Finland. Entering the quarterfinals Russia had only scored one goal in the entire tournament. The Olympic Athletes of Russia offense and scored six times to beat Switzerland and move on to face Canada in the Semifinals only to get shut out and lose 5-0.
Russia hasn’t scored a lot of goals but almost all of their offense is driven by Anna Shokhina who has recorded three goals and two assists throughout the tournament. Goaltender struggled with the lowest save percentage in the tournament registering an .889.
Next: When is Women's Olympic hockey gold medal game?
Catch the Women’s bronze medal game this Wednesday, Feb. 21 at 4:40 pm Korea time or 2:40 a.m. ET in the States. The game is played at Kwandong Hockey Centre. The game is televised on USA Network in the United States. Finland will need to bring its high-powered offense to take home a bronze while the Olympic Athletes of Russia will need their goaltending to step up and deliver a great game to bring an Olympic medal back to Russia.