Julian Gauthier scored two goals as Team Canada beat the Czech Republic 5-3 in the quarterfinals of the IIHF World Junior Championships Monday night in Toronto.
The win advances Canada to the semifinal round in Montreal on Wednesday night, when they will take on Sweden, who beat Slovakia 8-3 in their quarterfinal match.
The Czech Republic did score first, as David Kase scored with 16:49 elapsed in the opening period. Both teams had exchanged a single power play earlier in the frame.
Canada got the tying goal and the go-ahead goal in the second period. Blake Speers tied it up at 3:45 into the stanza, and Mitchell Stephens put Canada ahead less then four minutes later. That lead would not last as Tomas Soustal tied the game up at 8:53. Thomas Chabot, who has had a productive tournament, put Canada ahead for good at 13:32 to conclude the scoring in the second period.
The third period was the Julien Gauthier show. He got his first goal of the game at 3:18. The Czech Republic got back within one goal soon after when Simon Stransky scored at 5:54 of the period. Gauthier sealed the scoring for Canada and the game just 43 seconds after.
Connor Ingram only faced ten Czech shots the entire evening. He stopped seven of them. Canada had a total of 41 shots in the game.
The United States and Russia will make up the other semifinal game Wednesday night. The Americans stamped their ticket to Montreal with a 3-2 quarterfinal win over Switzerland, while Russia shut out Denmark 4-0. In the relegation phase, it was Finland over Latvia 2-1.