Take a deep exhale Canada: your hockey team is heading to the finals at the 4 Nations Face-off.
After a tense third period in yesterday's Family Day match, the Canadians took care of business in Boston to secure a spot in the championship game with a 5-3 win over Team Finland.
Canada played an incredible first 50 minutes of hockey, with goals from Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, and Brayden Point, to build a 4-0 lead over Finland with 10 minutes left in the final period.
But after building a four goal lead, Canada took their foot off the gas, allowing Finland to cut their lead down to 4-3 with 1:17 left in regulation.
Luckily, Canadian captain Sidney Crosby was able to finish the game by shooting the puck into Finland's empty net - securing a Canadian victory.
Now all of North America must patiently wait for Thursday night when Canada and the U.S. will play in Boston at 8 p.m. EST.
Canada enters the game as the underdog: the USA has clearly been the strongest team in this tournament, even beating Canada on Saturday night.
But Canada has a shot at winning this game if they can accomplish three major things:
1. Generate offence - and lots of it
In their first meeting against the USA, Canada could not create highly dangerous offensive plays and when they did they were stopped by American goaltender Connor Hellebuyck.
In today's game against Finland, Canada was all over the Fins in the first two periods and frankly could have been up by more than four goals if Finnish goaltender Juuse Saros hadn't made a couple great saves.
With Canada creating more chances in the offensive zone you obviously give your team a better chance at scoring but it also tires out the USA players as they will be more concerned with preventing a goal against.
If Team Canada can get more chances than in game one and even go up by two or three goals early in the game, that will be a major advantage for the Canadian players.
2. Team Canada can't lose focus in the defensive zone
When the final minutes of the game against Finland began to wind down, Canada lost their focus and allowed two quick goals which brought Finland back into the game.
Luckily, Canada was able to win the game. But their lapse in judgement could have cost them against Finland and will cost them against the United States.
If Canada takes even one shift off against the USA and makes a crucial mistake in their defensive zone they will take advantage because that is what good teams do, they make you pay for your mistakes.
We saw this in the first meeting between these two teams where USA's Dylan Larkin took advantage of a bad Canada change and a Sidney Crosby turnover and scored what ended up being the game-winning goal.
Canada cannot afford to make bad mistakes against this team or else they will pay for it.
3. Goaltender Jordan Binnington needs to play the game of his career
Binnington has been criticized a lot during these games and some have been well deserved and some not.
If he does not play up to what Canada needs than Canada does not have a chance at winning this game, but if he plays as well as he has in previous years like for example when he win the Stanley Cup for St. Louis in 2019, then he will give Canada a great chance to win this game.
Sadly, goal tending is not something a team can control, it is the hardest position to play in hockey from a mental perspective.
Binnington is terrific at shaking off goals and moving on to the next play but in this next game he needs to have his best game of the tournament in order to help give Canada their best chance at winning.
Canada can win this game because they are a great hockey team, they have some of the best players in the world and an incredible coaching staff helping out on the bench.
But if they can't generate offence, give up easy chances for the U.S., and have a bad performance from their goalie. They are going to be the ones watching that first place trophy being lifted by the opposing team.
It all comes down to this Thursday night - and all of Canada can't wait.