Buffalo Sabres: Tage Thompson wins bronze medal at IIHF
Today is the final day of the IIHF World Championship in Latvia. The bronze-medal game has just concluded, as Team USA defeated Team Germany to capture third place in the tournament. There were a handful of players within the Buffalo Sabres organization that played in the bronze-medal match.
Team Germany had Tobias Reider, who played his first season in Buffalo for the Sabres this past year. And they also had JJ Peterka, who was drafted by the Sabres in the second round of the 2020 NHL Draft but has yet to make his NHL debut. The United States team included Tage Thompson, who has played for Buffalo for the past three seasons.
The United States team had no issues putting away Germany to capture the bronze medal in this year’s IIHF World Championship, as the USA won by the score of 6-1. Thompson tallied three assists in 13:15 of ice time. Neither one of Reider or Peterka recorded a point for Germany in the bronze medal match.
Tage had a decent IIHF World Championship performance, scoring one goal and recording four assists throughout the ten games that the United States played. In the ten games that Germany played, Tobias Reider recorded four points on one goal and three assists, and Peterka recorded one goal and no assists in the tournament. Overall, a quiet tournament for those two.
The 2021 IIHF World Championship concludes later today as Finland takes on Canada in the gold-medal match at 1:15 pm EST on NHL Network. Finland is the defending winner of the tournament, as they won gold in 2019. And since the tournament was canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19, Finland is looking to defend their title today.
If you are looking for a Sabres tie-in for the gold-medal game, Arttu Ruotsalainen is playing for Finland, and the potential first overall pick for Buffalo, Owen Power, is playing for Canada.