USA vs Canada: The Stars and Stripes will punish the offending Russians and advance to the finals of the 2021 World Cup

The U.S. national team defeated the Canadians 5-1 in the group stage. Will Gerard Gallant's charges be able to take revenge for that failure by reaching the World Championship finals? Our prediction: the Stars and Stripes will once again be closer to victory!

Team USA is getting closer and closer to becoming world champions for the first time since 1960. It seemed that at some point, but in 2021, they would not be able to compete for the top spot, since they had the weakest roster in recent years, and they had not played any friendly matches before the tournament in Riga. The first match of the world championship against the Finns confirmed their thoughts about the Stars and Stripes as they lost 1-2, but in the next seven games, they won with a total score of 26-7, including a 6:1 victory against the Slovaks in the quarterfinals. Obviously, the Americans are now in good shape and ready to fight for the trophy.

Team Canada was a team that should have ended their World Championship performance after the third game, as by then they had not scored a single point, having lost all three games to Latvia, the USA, and Germany by a combined score of 2-10. Then Andrew Mangiapane, who with Adam Henrique and Connor Brown started scoring in every game, allowing them to beat Norway, Kazakhstan, and Italy, and in the battle with Finland, Gerard Gallant's men scored the coveted points that allowed them to reach the quarterfinals. Everyone probably saw what the Maple Leafs did in the quarterfinals when they beat a vaunted Russian team, 2-1, with the winning puck in overtime scored by the same Andrew Mangiapane.

The Canadian national team had the match of its life the day before, beating the mediocre Russians, but it's not worth drawing any big conclusions from the outcome of that game. After all, the Maple Leafs' current roster still looks very weak, and it would be problematic to win the tournament as a unit, and they left a lot of energy and emotion behind in the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, the Stars and Stripes defeated the Slovaks, 6-1, and from about the beginning of the second period of that game, they were already preparing for the semifinals. It is obvious that the Americans have more energy and skill, so it begs the bet on the victory of the USA national team in the match with the odds of about 1.78.

It has already been said a lot about the fact that the U.S. and Canadian teams at the World Championships play without a prohibitive mood, and in general perceive this tournament only as entertainment, but at the stage of the semifinals, the trophy is already too close to neglect the possibility of winning it. That is why you should not expect in the upcoming battle the same number of mistakes that these teams made in the group stage in a face-to-face battle, so the performance should be markedly lower and the best option for the forecast seems to be a total of over 5.0  pucks at odds close to 2.00.

Conor Garland has never played for the U.S. national team in an official game before, and his debut for the Stars and Stripes has inspired the 25-year-old American so much that he has become the star of his team. In eight games in the tournament, he scored 10 points (5 goals + 5 assists), which is the best indicator among the U.S. representatives and he continues to progress during the championship. It is obvious that he is one of the few who can move the British player Liam Kirk in the World Championship sniper race, so it is worth paying attention to the bet on Connor Garland's goal at about 2.50 odds.