QUEBEC CITY, Canada (AFP) - Canada and Russia won their World Championships semi-finals to set the stage for a gold medal game that will recall historic battles between the two great ice hockey nations.
Evgeny Nabokov made 24 saves for the shutout as Russia blanked Finland 4-0 and Mike Green had a goal and two assists, including the game winner, as Canada rallied to beat Sweden 5-4 in the evening match.
Canada and Russia have never met in the final since the current format was introduced in 2000.
Green said he initially thought about passing but instead kept the puck and raced down the right side. He scored with a wrist shot from a sharp angle to give Canada a 5-3 lead with just seven seconds to go in the second period at the Colisee arena.
Swedish defenceman Doug Murray tripped at his own blueline allowing Green the time he needed to get a good shot away.
"I was going to pass the puck and I noticed their two defencemen bumped into each other," Green said. "I didn't know how much time was left on the clock and our forwards were standing still.
"But if I passed it we wouldn't have had a chance to get it in so I just took off."
Against the Russians on Sunday, Canada will try to capture their 25th title and become the first country to win on home soil since the Soviet Union did it 22 years ago.
"We are a team that nothing comes easy to," Canada coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We have the ability to turn up the tempo when we have to."
Dany Heatley, Mike Green, Jamal Mayers and Ryan Getzlaf also scored for Canada who beat Sweden in the semi-finals for the second straight year.
Anton Stralman scored twice for while Niclas Wallin added a single for reigning Olympic gold medallist Sweden who last won the gold at the Worlds in 2006.
Sergei Fedorov, Alexei Morozov, Maxim Sushinskiy and Danis Zaripov also scored for Russia who have one of the longest gold medal droughts of the traditional hockey giants going back to 1993.
The Russians also avenged a 2-1 overtime loss to the Finns in last year's semis.
"It was an unbelievable game for us," Ovechkin said.
Russia fired 27 shots at Finnish goaltender Niklas Backstrom who had his hands full with the most explosive offence of all the 16 teams in the tournament.
They also got solid goaltending from San Jose Sharks star Nabokov who joined the team during the round-robin after injuries disrupted their goaltending rotation at the start of the tournament.
"Evgeny is the best in the world and this year he is more experienced and is playing better," said Russian coach Vyacheslav Bykov.
Fedorov opened the scoring for Russia who took advantage of a mistake by Finland at their own blueline to score the best goal of the game with 13:41 gone in the first period.
Finnish forward Saku Koivu fell at his own blueline and Russians picked it up and scored on a three-on-one. After a series of passes up the ice the goal culminated a three-way passing play between Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin and Fedorov.
Semin acted as the quarterback on the play from the right side, giving the puck back to Ovechkin in the high slot. Ovechkin then passed it back to Semin who slid it across the top of the crease to Fedorov who had an open net.
"Semin saw me there and just threw the rocket over there," Fedorov said.
Zaripov made it 2-0 just under four minutes gone in the second on another three-way pass play involving his linemates.
Fedorov said the task now is to forget this win and start thinking about the final.
"The last game is the toughest game of the tournament. It has been a long two and a half weeks to play under this pressure," he said. "You have to forget the previous nine games and recuperate and get a fresh mind for the final game."
