2025 World Juniors: Top standouts as Finland beats Sweden to advance to final
OTTAWA – It took nearly a full 10 minutes of overtime, but Finland will play for gold after beating Sweden 4-3 on Saturday.
The Finns are looking to win gold for the first time since 2019, and their first medal since losing to Canada in overtime of the 2022 championship game. Sweden, meanwhile, will play for a medal for the fourth straight year in the bronze medal game at 3:30 PM ET, with the title game taking place at 7:30 PM ET.
The Swedes got on the board first, with Otto Stenberg ending a 21-minute deadlock with a great shot on an odd-man rush. But three minutes later, Emil Hemming converted after taking Konsta Helenius’ pass, beating Melker Thelin to make it 1-1. Finland then scored to take their first lead of the game at 33:28, with Jesse Kiiskinen tapping in the feed from Topias Hynninen to make it 2-1 on the power play.
The teams traded goals from there. At 38:07, Stenberg snagged his second of the game, while Arttu Alasiurua scored with 20.1 seconds left in the middle stanza to give the Finns the lead again. At 51:32, Wilhelm Hallquisth tied it up to make it 3-3 and force a 10-minute overtime.
It was a slow-paced extra frame, with neither team looking to make too much of a push. But with 37.5 seconds left, Benjamin Rautiainen scored from the goal line, beating Thelin from a difficult angle to win the game.
Finland
#19 Konsta Helenius, C (Buffalo Sabres): Helenius had four assists to help get the Finns into the game during the second. It feels like he’s been getting better every single game. He’s such a smart puck distributor who doesn’t often try and play too fancy, but he has the hockey IQ and general on-ice awareness to get the disk where he wants it.
#33 Aron Kiviharju, D (Minnesota Wild): This was my favorite game from Kiviharju. He scored a goal that was later taken away for being offside, but he helped make that happen after starting the play from his own zone. He had a couple of other decent looks that fell apart but this was the game that I seemed to notice him the most over the past two weeks.
#32 Emil Hemming, LW (Dallas Stars): Outside of the tripping penalty midway through the game, Hemming was excellent. This was his best game of the tournament, and he was rewarded by scoring a goal and adding the primary assist on the 3-2 goal. Hemming was a bit quiet early on but it feels the last few games were good for the second-year tournament participant.
Sweden
#25 Otto Stenberg, LW (St. Louis Blues): Stenberg was tremendous today, scoring the first two Swedish goals. He has a great shot release and was one of the best two-way threats for the Swedes, as well. I like how he can be deceptive on the rush – often making opponents think he’s about to make a pass before firing a shot in. Sweden needed him to perform today and he delivered.
#9 Theo Lindstein, D (St. Louis Blues): Lindstein was having a great game before he assisted on the 2-2 goal, but that was nice, too. The Blues prospect hasn’t been as good this year as he was back in 2024 but the Swedes kept using him late in the game as they needed someone to help generate extra offense. His own-zone play was solid, as well.
#16 Felix Unger Sorum, RW (Carolina Hurricanes): FUS has been here for nearly every Swedish game, and for good reason. He battles his tail off, and it was his hard work to retrieve the puck that led to the 3-3 goal. The AHL forward rarely loses a 1-on-1 battle and finds himself in open spaces quite often.