Travis Sanheim will play for an Olympic gold medal.<\/p>\n
Canada beat Finland, 3-2, in the men’s hockey semifinals over in Milan on Friday, punching their ticket into the last round, and now awaiting the winner of USA-Slovakia at the other end of the bracket.<\/p>\n
Canada was trailing, 2-1, pressing late into the third period, when a puck in front of the Finnish crease came rocketing out to the point and right to Sanheim’s feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Flyers’ defenseman settled it down on his stick, then slid the puck across to fellow blueline Shea Theodore, who loaded up a slap shot that zipped by everyone still piled up in front of the crease and to the back of the net as the horn went blaring.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sanheim was awarded the primary assist for his first point of the tournament, and at no better time.<\/p>\n
Then, with Canada continuing to make a push, Colorado superstar Nathan MacKinnon took a high stick in the dwindling minutes, came back on the power play, and lasered the winner in before anyone in the arena could even blink.<\/p>\n
Rasmus Ristolainen, the other big and physical Flyers blueliner, was on the other side of it with Finland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His Olympic run falls to the bronze medal game, which will be against the loser of USA-Slovakia. Ristolainen has\u00a0put together a solid run of play where he’s logged some heavy and demanding minutes next to his defensive partner in Florida’s Niko Mikkola and thrived within them, at one point even leading the Olympics in plus-minus rating<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ristolainen will certainly have some positive buzz about him coming back to Philadelphia, but he’ll still have one more game to build on it on Saturday (2:30 p.m. ET puck drop).<\/p>\n Sanheim, meanwhile, will be on the biggest stage of them all.<\/p>\n He made Team Canada as a depth defenseman and sat for the opener. Then Winnipeg’s Josh Morrissey got injured, and he stepped into the lineup.<\/p>\n He hasn’t let go of the spot since, and just used it to step up and put his country one step away from gold.<\/p>\n The gold medal game will be Sunday at 8:00 a.m. ET.<\/p>\n The bronze medal game will be broadcast on USA on Saturday, and the gold medal game on NBC on Sunday. Both games will stream on Peacock.<\/p>\n SIGN UP HERE to receive the PhillyVoice Sports newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n Follow Nick on Twitter: @itssnick<\/a><\/p>\n Follow Nick on Bluesky: @itssnick<\/a><\/p>\n Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports<\/a><\/p>\n