It was the United States’ first win against Canada in a best-on-best international tournament since the preliminary round of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics on Feb. 21, 2010.
Larkin had a goal and an assist, and Connor Hellebuyck made 25 saves for the U.S., which leads the tournament standings with six points (2-0-0-0) because of two regulation wins, including 6-1 against Finland on Thursday.
Canada (0-1-0-1), Sweden and Finland each has two points. A regulation win is worth three points, so the United States can’t be caught for first place when the remaining two games of the round-robin portion are played at TD Garden in Boston on Monday.
The championship game is at TD Garden on Thursday.
“It’s exciting to guarantee to be in Thursday, but we still have a big one Monday (against Sweden),” U.S. forward Brady Tkachuk said. “I guess it can be easy to get complacent, but this group I don’t even think it’s going to get in our mind that we’re happy with where we’re at. I think we know what’s at stake here. We know what our goal has been right from the start, and I don’t think we’re going to stop until we get it.”
Connor McDavid scored, and Jordan Binnington made 20 saves for Canada.
Canada will clinch a berth in the final with a regulation win against Finland on Monday (1 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS). Finland will do the same if it defeats Canada in regulation.
“It was fast, tight-checking, competitive, emotional,” McDavid said. “It had everything you would want in a hockey game. It [stinks] it didn’t go our way, but this thing’s far from over.”
The intensity and emotion of the rivalry were evident from the opening face-off as there were three fights in the first nine seconds.
“Mayhem,” Canada coach Jon Cooper said. “That was the first minute.”
U.S. forward Matthew Tkachuk fought Canada forward Brandon Hagel right after the puck drop, with two seconds having come off the clock. On the ensuing face-off, U.S. forward Brady Tkachuk did the same with Canada forward Sam Bennett after one more second ticked off.
After another face-off and six seconds of play, J.T. Miller of the United States and Colton Parayko of Canada fought after a scrum by the U.S. net.
Miller was also called for cross-checking, but the U.S. killed the penalty.
“I think the message we wanted to send is ‘It’s our time,'” Matthew Tkachuk said. “We’re in a hostile environment, and we wanted to show that we’re not backing down. They’ve had so much success over so many years over there. They’re some of the best players in the world. We felt in this environment it was a good time to do it. It was a lot of fun.
“You’ve got to give credit to those guys, as well. They did the exact same thing that we did. I thought it was great energy from both sides, and the building was shaking after the third one. I’m excited to watch them.”
Things settled down after that, the pace picked up and McDavid gave Canada a 1-0 lead at 5:31 of the first period.
He gained speed through the neutral zone, got the puck from Drew Doughty in stride and with space, and protected it from Charlie McAvoy on his backhand before lifting a backhand over Hellebuyck’s glove from the right side.
Canada had the puck a lot in the third period but couldn’t get through offensively with the U.S. playing well in its structure, getting sticks on pucks, disrupting passing lanes and blocking eight shots.
“We had the puck for about 180 feet, we couldn’t get it past that extra 20 feet and that’s stuff we’ve got to look at,” Cooper said. “We’ve got to learn from this.”
Hellebuyck said it “felt playoff hockey” in the third period.
“Got a lead and you try to kill the clock,” he said. “Try to garner a little bit of something, but you know the team is going to be pressing so you’ve got to play perfect hockey, perfect details.”
Guentzel scored into an empty net at 18:41 for the 3-1 final.
Hellebuyck made three more saves after that to finish with eight in the third.
“What an incredible hockey game,” U.S. coach Mike Sullivan said.
