Bronze again: Sunday notes

It’s bronze for the United States at the World Championship, beating Canada 4-1. Farmington’s Nick Bonino scored the game-winner, and Anders Lee had one of two empty-netters. That’s a medal as well for Greenwich’s Cam Atkinson, who had 11 points in 10 games, and Tage Thompson.

Three medals in six years.

Later on…

That was a surreal little sentence, no? Feel like I must’ve seen that happen some Tuesday morning at Wonderland in 2012.

But yeah. Sweden won gold, unbeaten through the tournament, with a 3-2 shootout win over Switzerland. Niederreiter opened the scoring for the Swiss, who led twice. Mika Zibanejad tied it the second time, late in the second period.

Nilsson finishes 7-0 with a .954 save percentage and 1.09 goals-against average in the tournament, which included three shutouts. The media named him the top goaltender.

Slightly closer to home, Toronto came back twice right after Phantoms goals, and Miro Aaltonen scored 10:59 into overtime to give the Marlies a 2-0 series lead. They’ll start three games in four days (assuming the Phantoms win one of the first two) on Wednesday in Allentown. Near Austin, similar stuff: It was Rockford tying it in the second, but Curtis McKenzie’s power-play goal 10:46 into OT gave the Texas Stars a 2-0 series lead. Things swing to Rockford for three-in-four (if the IceHogs yadda yadda yadda) on Tuesday.

One former New Haven Nighthawk is going to the Stanley Cup Final, as a longtime friend of the blog reminded me this afternoon: Vegas GM George McPhee. Another is reportedly about to get an NHL GM’s job.

And Fargo won the USHL’s Clark Cup, beating Youngstown 3-1 in the series.

World Championship: Locals by the numbers (final):

Player, Team (Hometown)   GP G A Pts
Cam Atkinson, USA (Greenwich)   10 7 4 11
Nino Niederreiter, SUI   10 4 5 9
Frans Nielsen, DEN   7 3 3 6
Anders Lee, USA   10 4 0 4
Nick Bonino, USA (Farmington)   5 1 3 4
Josh Bailey, CAN   9 1 3 4
Anthony Beauvillier, CAN   9 2 1 3
Tage Thompson, USA   10 1 2 3
Anders Nilsson, SWE   7 0 1 1
Ryan Pulock, CAN   8 0 1 1
Kristers Gudlevskis, LAT   2 0 0 0
Tomas Marcinko, SVK   7 0 0 0
Ville Pokka, FIN   8 0 0 0
Ilya Sorokin, RUS   0
Goalies: Team (hometown)   GP W-L MP GA Svs GAA SP
Anders Nilsson, SWE   7 7-0 440:00 8 166 1.09 .954
Kristers Gudlevskis, LAT   2 0-2 120:46 10 52 4.97 .839
Ilya Sorokin, RUS   0
Michael Fornabaio