Bedard's magical moment sends Canada to World Junior semis

Connor Bedard opened Monday’s World Junior Championship quarterfinal by making history and ended it by rescuing his team from a shocking upset.

Bedard zigged and zagged his way to an incredible overtime winner as Canada picked up a 4-3 victory to set up a date with Team USA in the World Junior semifinal on Wednesday.

"I couldn’t score on a shot so I kind of had to do something," Bedard said. 

"To hear [the crowd], you kind of black out a bit. But even after the goal the crowd was so loud I thought I was going deaf or something. So, it was pretty nuts."

“Who else would you want with the puck on your stick there on the three-on-three?" Canada head coach Dennis Williams said, also calling Bedard a special player. 

The winner was the 17-year-old’s second of the night as he scored just over six minutes in off a nifty wrist shot that made him the all-time goals and points leader in Canadian World Junior history. The Regina Pats star surpassed Jordan Eberle’s record of 14 career goals and also topped Eric Lindros’ mark of 31 career points that had stood since 1992.

Lindros took to social media Sunday and urged Bedard to not only break his points record, but "smash it!" and it’s safe to say the projected No. 1 overall pick in next year's draft listened.

"It's pretty cool he even knows who I am," Bedard said Sunday. "That's awesome to hear that and him wanting me to beat it is cool. We'll see here. A few more games so hopefully I can."

Bedard also set the Canadian single-tournament points mark, breaking the record owned by Dale McCourt (1977) and Brayden Schenn (2011) at 18.

You can watch every game of the 2023 IIHF World Junior Championship LIVE on TSN, TSN.ca and the TSN App.

But Bedard’s heroics were almost for naught as Slovakia pushed Canada to the limit and nearly ended the game a number of times in a back-and-forth overtime frame.

"You’d love to win in regulation, love to win a clean game but then at the end of the day that’s a really talented team we just played out there in Slovakia. They worked so hard all game, they played with their hearts out all game and we were fortunate to come out with the win tonight,” captain Shane Wright said.

"We talked all this time about playing our 60-plus. Resilient for 60-plus minutes and we knew at some point it would come longer than a 60-minute game and the guys stuck together and we found a way," Williams said.

After Bedard opened the scoring early, Dylan Guenther doubled Canada’s lead with a power-play goal in the second period. Slovakia hit right back as Libor Nemec sliced Canada’s lead in half with a marker of his own on the man-advantage. Zack Ostapchuk countered just over two minutes later, rocketing one home off the rush to restore Canada’s two-goal lead.

But Slovakia kept chipping away as Robert Baco scored to make things 3-2 for Canada heading into the final frame. Libor Nemec then got his second of the night to even the game at 3-3, blowing a kiss to the crowd in celebration, as things remained deadlocked into overtime.

No. 2 overall pick Simon Nemec was handed a cross-checking penalty with just over 40 seconds to go in regulation, sending Canada to the power play. But the Canadians couldn’t solve Slovak netminder Adam Gajan – who stopped 53 of 57 shots Monday night – until Bedard decided to make matters into his own hands.

After his winner, Bedard now sits just two goals back of McCourt and John Anderson's Canadian record of 10 goals in a single World Junior tournament. 

"I don’t know if I ever thought I’d be in this tournament so to think about that and kind of put it in perspective like that is pretty cool," Bedard said of his competition thus far.

"I’m not focused on personal success here. I want another gold medal and that’s all I want."

Canada’s Thomas Milic stopped 24 of 27 shots in the victory and made some giant stops in the extra frame.

“[Milic] was unreal tonight. So many big saves in key moments of the game. That one in overtime, I don’t even know how he saved it stretched out that far. But Milly has been great all tournament. It just shows his poise never wavered at all,” Wright said. 

Milic chose to deflect the praise to his teammates. 

"A bit of a roller coaster for sure. We had so many chances at the start of it on the power play there and they had a couple great looks as well, so I think it was a team game all around and you can't say enough about how good our guys were tonight," he said.

Canada began the tournament with a surprising 5-2 loss to Czechia, the first time they’ve lost their opening game on home soil. But they bounced back in a big way with three straight victories over Germany, Austria and Sweden to close out the round-robin by a combined score of 27-3 and place second in the group.

Earlier on Monday, the U.S. beat Germany 11-1 to book their spot in the semifinals, while Sweden and Czechia make up the other semis matchup with quarterfinal wins over Finland and Switzerland, respectively.