Noah Steen Sends Norway to First-Ever World Championship Medal With OT Bronze
History at Swiss Life Arena. Norway are bronze medalists at the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship for the first time, after Noah Steen ripped a 3-2 overtime winner past Jet Greaves at 3:32 of the extra session to break Canadian hearts in front of a sold-out crowd of 10,000 in Zurich.
It is the deepest a Norwegian men's team has ever gone at a World Championship. Their previous best was a fourth-place finish at the 1951 tournament. For a country whose entire roster plays outside the NHL, the result is seismic.
How it unfolded
Norway controlled the opening forty minutes. Emilio Pettersen put the underdogs in front at 6:44 of the first period, finishing a Christian Kaasastul feed for his first of the tournament. Stian Solberg doubled the lead at 32:29 with a big shot from the point, set up by Michael Brandsegg-Nygard and Johannes Johannesen, and Henrik Haukeland did the rest. Through forty minutes Norway led 2-0 and had limited a heavily-favoured Canadian side to 25 shots.
The third period was an entirely different game. Misha Donskov's team came out throwing everything at the Norwegian net, and Norway absorbed it for sixteen minutes before the dam broke. With Greaves pulled for the extra attacker, Robert Thomas swept a loose puck home at 58:44 to make it 2-1. A Canada timeout followed, Greaves went straight back to the bench, and Thomas struck again at 59:52, this time finished from Ryan O'Reilly and Macklin Celebrini, to tie it with eight seconds left on the clock. Two empty-net Canadian goals to force overtime is the cruellest possible end to regulation.
But Norway did not blink. 3:32 into the four-on-four overtime period, Steen collected the puck off a Canadian turnover and beat Greaves clean to send the Norwegian bench over the boards.
Haukeland the wall
Henrik Haukeland was the story behind the story. The 35-year-old veteran stopped 44 of 46 shots, including 18 of 20 in a frantic third period, and was Norway's player of the game by any measure. He has been the backbone of this tournament for Petter Thoresen's side, picking up another win to add to his quarterfinal and bronze-medal performances.
At the other end Jet Greaves finished with 21 saves on 24 shots, his record now a heartbreaking 60:37 of bronze-medal minutes that ended in a loss.
Norwegian heroes
Captain Andreas Martinsen wore the C through the entire tournament. Krogdahl and Kaasastul, the two alternates, anchored the back end. Brandsegg-Nygard provided the engine, Solberg the heavy shot, and a deep forward group that included Pettersen, Steen, Bakke Olsen, Salsten and Vesterheim all chipped in. Thoresen's message all week was that the result of the QF win over Latvia and the SF loss to Switzerland would mean nothing without a medal to show for it. Mission accomplished.
What it means
Norway's run from second place in Group B through a quarterfinal shutout of Latvia, a hard-fought semifinal loss to host Switzerland and now an overtime medal-game win is the story of this tournament. Canada leave Zurich without a medal for the second time in three years.
The gold medal game between Switzerland and Finland follows at 20:20 tonight, also at Swiss Life Arena. For Norway, the celebrations have already started.