USA rallies past Finland in OT for second straight World Juniors gold

OTTAWA — Team USA’s Teddy Stiga ended the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship with one shot on target. It won his country a gold.

The Nashville Predators prospect scored the overtime winner in a 4-3 victory over Finland on Sunday evening at the Canadian Tire Centre, giving the United States a second consecutive World Junior gold medal victory. It’s the first time Team USA has ever repeated as champions at the event.

Teddy Stiga, the golden goal belongs to you! 🥇#USAFIN #WorldJuniors #IIHF @usahockey pic.twitter.com/o9kNXQsmhu

— IIHF (@IIHFHockey) January 6, 2025

“Unreal,” Stiga said. “Being able to win a gold in that way, nothing better.”

“Joy,” U.S. head coach David Carle said. “Pure joy for the guys. All the work that our staff and people behind the scenes put in. It’s all worth it.”

Stiga began the tournament as a healthy scratch, sitting out Team USA’s first tournament game against Germany. His Boston College teammates Gabe Perreault, Ryan Leonard and James Hagens took up most of the spotlight with their production, combining for 13 goals and 29 points. Defenseman Cole Hutson was the team’s leading point-getter with 11, the first time a defenseman has ever led the World Juniors in points. Hutson and Leonard each had two-point nights while their goalie Trey Augustine made 21 saves on 24 shots. Hagens also scored in the first period for the Americans.

But in three-on-three overtime, it was Stiga who played hero.

“(Finland) was changing. I saw their guy slow up. So, I skated by him. Zeev (Buium) had a nice sauce pass. I kind of lost it behind the Finnish guy. It almost went in the corner. But, I luckily recovered it and I don’t really remember doing it. I just shot the puck, honestly.”

“Throughout the (National Team Development Program), Boston College now and here,” Hagens said. “It just shows that he’s worked every day and he’s one of the hardest workers in the room. It all paid off today.”

For Finland, they were left disappointed. Finland’s Emil Hemming had two assists in the loss while goalie Petteri Rimpinen — nicknamed Mr. Showtime after it was written on his skate blades — made 36 saves on 40 shots. Finland was a silver medalist back in 2022 when they lost to Canada and sought their first gold medal since 2019.

“We had good chances to make the winning goal,” Finland head coach Lauri Mikkola said. “But we didn’t make it.”

Finland had a 3-1 lead, thanks to first-period goals from Jesse Kiiskinen and Tuomas Uronen. Emil Pieniniemi scored his team’s third goal in the second period, celebrating by mimicking revealing his chest a la Clark Kent turning into Superman. The Americans began their comeback after that. Brandon Svoboda put his team within one after firing a puck off a Finnish defender before it beat Rimpinen. And with seconds to play in the period, Hutson cut to the middle of the ice and wired a shot past Rimpinen. The young defender then copied Pieniniemi’s celebration. Hutson says he didn’t have Pieniniemi in mind when he did it.

“I just wanted to do a cool celly,” Hutson said. “I love celebrating if you can’t tell. You’ve got to love it when you don’t score that much. So, just trying to do something cool every time.”

Neither team scored in the third, necessitating overtime. At 11:56 of OT, Stiga received a pass from Buium and then beat Rimpinen while all alone, leading to his teammates clearing the bench and celebrating on the ice.

“Unbelievable,” Hutson said. “I think we had control the whole overtime. Zeev made a hell of a pass to Stiga. You know that kid, he’s going to put it in the net.”

“To have him out there,” Carle said. “It’s his speed, how smart he is. Great job hitting that hole, obviously Zeev had to hit him on that crossing route. Great finish to put it five-hole.”

The Americans spent the entire tournament as the villains, constantly booed by the Canadian crowd in Ottawa. But it was their national anthem and their goal song, “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, that rang through the speakers of the Canadian Tire Centre as they celebrated their latest success.

“We tuned out the crowd this game,” Hutson said. “Not sure if they were cheering for us or against us. (We) just focused on our own game and it turned out pretty well.”

“Last year, we were the highest-playing country in the world,” Carle said. “You know you look at the sheer demographics of the population and the grassroots that’s going on by USA Hockey, by many of the NHL teams in growing the game. The player pool continues to get bigger, deeper, more talented. My opinion is that it’s a sign of things to come. We’re really proud of the fact that we’re able to win back-to-back and be the first team to do that in USA Hockey history. But, I think for us, it’s just keeping on this path and making sure that we continue to raise the bar and have the standard.”

Earlier in the day, Czechia needed a 14-round shootout — the longest in IIHF tournament history — to defeat Sweden 3-2 to win their second consecutive bronze medal at the World Juniors. Eduard Sale scored twice on five attempts in the shootout, including the game-winning goal, to upend the Swedes.

Eduard Sale’s shootout winner. pic.twitter.com/Ej7It3DWKS

— Julian McKenzie (@jkamckenzie) January 6, 2025

2025 World Juniors tournament honors

Goalie of the tournament: Petteri Rimpinen (Finland)
Defenseman of the tournament: Axel Sandin-Pellikka (Sweden)
Forward of the tournament: Ryan Leonard (USA)
MVP: Leonard

(Photo of Cole Hutson celebrating his goal with Ryan Leonard, Brandon Svoboda, Zeev Buium and Gabe Perreault: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)