Tip: Can Canada make it to the final?

Canada and Latvia clash on Saturday in what is one of the World Championship's two semi-finals. The venue is the Nokia Arena in Tampere, Finland.

Canada-Latvia

Can Latvia make another upset?

Latvia made an upset as they defeated Sweden on Thursday evening at home in Arena Riga, and is now fighting for the World Championship medals. The question is whether Latvia can manage to do another upset and can make it to the final? During Thursday's match, they were put under intense pressure, and the Vancouver goalkeeper between Latvia's posts, Arturs Silovs, was forced to make a huge game, and managed to save forty of the forty-one shots that Sweden fired at him. It was not the first time during this championship that the 22-year-old goalkeeper was forced to make a huge game, as Latvia have been put under heavy pressure on several occasions, but the team has now won six straight games in the Championship after starting with two defeats.

Canada = favorites to win the gold medal?

Canada took revenge on Finland after last year's final loss, when they won in the quarter-finals, on Finnish soil, with 4-1. Canada was already one of the big favorites to take gold in this year's Championships, and considering that they knocked out one of the heavy gold favorites at the same time as both Switzerland and Sweden went out, the situation looks bright for the reigning silver medalists. As I have talked about before, Canada have strong defensive pairing with several strong names and also in the offense they have a strong set of players where Michael Carcone, Lawson Crouse and Tyler Toffoli are the team's strongest scorers so far in the tournament behind the offensively strong defenseman Mackenzie Weegar. In the quarter-final game against Finland, it was Carcone and Toffoli who stepped forward and were responsible for the goal scoring together with Jack Quinn and Sammy Blais, and during the course of the tournament, there has been a wide delivery in the goal- and point scoring as nineteen out of twenty players have so far been responsible for at least one scored point.

Conclusion and prediction

When Latvia and Canada met in the opening match of the World Championship two weeks ago, Canada won by 6-0, and when the two teams now meet in the semi-finals, it is once again Canada who are big favorites to take the win. I think it is likely that Canade meet the expectations and make it to the final as they have a strong team in both defensively and offensively. During the tournament, the Canadian team have been a team that has created a lot in offensive direction and also solid defensively. At the same time, Latvia was under a lot of pressure in their quarter-final match against Sweden, where goalkeeper Arturs Silovs was forced to face forty out of forty-one shots. Now they also don't have the home ice advantage, as the rest of the playoffs are going to be played in Tampere. I think is likely that Canada scores at least three goals here and also win by at least two goals.

My two betting tips for this semi-final are therefore:

• Canada -1.5 @ -152
• Canada Over 3.0 Team Goals @ -182 (stake refunded if exactly three goals scored by Canada in regular time)

Both can be found at Unibet