There were upsets, tight games, heartbreaks and triumphs, but now this 2025 World Junior Championship is officially behind us.
The final day of the holiday classic began with the fight for third place — and the battle to take the last medal — between Sweden and Czechia. The game was tight from the jump and for each goal the Czechs scored, Tre Kronor had an answer. It was a game where the best players performed like the best players and set the tone of the contest.
Of course, a game like that couldn’t be solved in regulation, nor in the 10 minutes of three-on-three overtime. It took 14 rounds in the shootout to eventually determine the winner and, medalling for their third-consecutive year, Czechia walked away with the bronze. Sweden heads home medal-less for the third time in six years and have failed to medal in back-to-back tournaments since a gold, silver and silver run between 2012 and 2014.
The final match of the tournament was a showdown between two teams whose paths to the gold medal game differed slightly. Finland, who was shut out in its first tournament game against Canada, got better each day it played and hadn’t lost since. The United States entered as gold-medal favourites and only cemented that as the tournament progressed. Ironically, its only loss these two weeks came to Finland.
From the moment the puck dropped, it was clear that neither team was going to bow out quietly. Finland controlled the majority of play in the opening frame and finished the first 20 minutes up a goal. But if there is one thing about this American team, they may be down but they’re never out. The U.S. came out swinging in the second and, after allowing Finland to score early in the period for a 3-1 lead, it pressured hard and scored two in the final five minutes of the period to get back to square.
Though there were still 20 minutes remaining on the clock, it felt once the U.S. tied it up, that the game would enter next-goal-wins territory. Sure enough, for the second time on Sunday, this contest needed extra time.
In the end, it was Teddy Stiga who played overtime hero with his first world juniors goal, completing the gold-medal comeback for the United States and officially closing the book on this tournament.
Let’s take a look at three standout performances from the final day of the 2025 world juniors.
3rd star: Eduard Sale, Czechia
It’s games like this, where everything is on the line, that you expect your leaders to step up. That’s exactly what Czechia captain Eduard Sale did on Sunday to earn his country bronze for the second year in a row.
Sale, suiting up for his third and final world juniors, scored his sixth goal of the tournament in the second period off an unfortunate turnover from Sweden. Miroslav Holinka intercepted an ill-informed pass from the Swedes right at the blue line and sent it down to his waiting captain in the slot. Sale then made a quick move from his forehand to backhand in tight, roofing it over goalie Marcus Gidlof’s glove-side shoulder.
His quick hands and good positioning on the goal were impressive enough, but Sale was offensively dominant the entire evening. Though he took the least amount of shifts of all Czechia’s top-six forwards and finished with 19:31 of ice time, the Seattle Kraken prospect managed six shots on goal — tied for first amongst all Czechia skaters.
In a game that was as tight-checking and on-par as any this tournament, Sale won the bronze for Czechia in the shootout, where he was relied upon heavily.
Czech netminder Michael Hrabal turned aside nearly every shot he faced and Gidlof was equally brilliant for Sweden, staving off multiple Czech advantages to keep the Swedes alive. Gidlof even fought off three of Sale’s five shootout attempts, but the 19-year-old stepped up when it mattered most. Facing the disadvantage for the first time, Sale tickled the twine on a must-score shot, then was called upon once again to deliver the final blow after Sweden failed to solve Hrabal. The shootout stands as the longest in the history of the world juniors.
Sale finishes ninth in tournament scoring, but second on his team, with six goals and eight points in seven games. He has won medals with Czechia in each of his trips to the world juniors.
2nd star: Petteri Rimpinen, Finland
There’s a reason that Petteri Rimpinen heads home as the tournament’s top goaltender.
His .900 save percentage and four goals allowed in the gold-medal contest don’t adequately portray how he nearly single-handedly kept Finland in the game throughout the final 45 minutes, even as the ice started to tilt in favour of the Americans.
After the United States came out uncharacteristically lacklustre in the first period, it threw everything it had at the Finns from there on out, outshooting Finland 26-9 over the final 40 minutes. He allowed just two goals, only one of which beat him cleanly.
Once overtime began, Rimpinen looked so dialled-in against an American team that fully found its groove that it started to look like he might carry Finland to gold on his back. The 18-year-old made multiple point-blank and breakaway saves to keep Suomi alive.
Rimpinen made his first game-saving stop about five minutes into overtime as Finland’s three skaters were stuck on a long shift. American Trevor Connelly shovelled a no-look pass to Zeev Buium, who sent a one-timer right into the waiting pads of the netminder. He pulled the heroics again less than a minute later, making a right-pad save after the American captain danced through all three Finnish players to get a point-blank look in tight.
Less than a minute after that, he committed robbery on James Hagens, who got a perfect feed from Danny Nelson behind the net but couldn’t put it past the young netminder. In the end, it was a sneaky five-hole shot from Stiga that got the best of him, but not before he made five saves in 8:04 of overtime.
All told, Rimpinen was probably the best player on the ice for Finland all tournament, finishing with five wins, one shutout, a 2.34 goals-against average and a .933 save percentage — the best stats of all goalies who played more than two games.
It might have been Stiga who officially won the United States its gold, but it wouldn’t have made it to that point if not for the continued effort and compete level of captain Ryan Leonard.
The 19-year-old Washington Capitals prospect upped his game during his second world juniors and finished the tournament with five goals, five assists and a plus-10 rating in 10 games. He added two assists in Sunday’s gold-medal game, each of them primary.
He combined with Boston College linemates Hagens and Gabe Perrault to get the Americans on the board in the first. Perrault capitalized off a Finland turnover, quickly getting the puck to Leonard in the high slot. Rimpinen made the initial save, but Hagens was right at the doorstep to put the rebound home.
Leonard’s second assist came on the game-tying goal for the U.S., when he streaked into the offensive zone on the left wing, dropping a pass to defenceman Cole Hutson, who wired it home from the slot. All of a sudden, the United States was back in this game, and it had their captain largely to thank.
Aside from points, Leonard was a driver all night, finishing his checks, playing physically and creating offence for the Americans as the game went on, and helping momentum shift in favour of the red-white-and-blue. He finished the evening with a team-leading seven shots on goal.
In addition to leading his team to their first back-to-back gold medals in program history, Leonard earned top forward and tournament MVP.
A sophomore at Boston College, he leads the NCAA in goals-per-game with 16 in 12 contests and will likely make the jump to the resurging Capitals team at the conclusion of this season.
Honourable mentions: Sweden’s David Edstrom stepped up when he was needed most. Prior to Sunday, Edstrom had only scored twice this tournament, but doubled up during the bronze medal match, tying the game in the first and second period and giving the Swedes a chance. … U.S. defenceman Zeev Buium may not have been top-20 in tournament scoring, or even top-five amongst Americans, but he was the lifeblood of the team on the blue line on Sunday. Buium played a staggering 27:58 and led all defenceman in shots, totalling six on the evening, and set up Stiga for the game-winning goal. … Jakub Stancl continued his dominant tournament by scoring the opening goal for Czechia on the power play in the first period and contributed one goal in the shootout. Along with Sale, Stancl led teammates in shots with six and led tournament scoring until Cole Hutson scored the game-tying goal for the Americans. He’ll finish with seven goals and 10 points in seven tournament games.
