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I feel for all of the American hockey fans out there who generally don't have the access to the world junior tournament that we do in Canada, because it really is some of the best hockey of the year. And it always comes right around the NHL's midseason, when the league's bloated 1,230-game schedule starts catching up with an awful lot of players and the quality of play diminishes.

Saturday night's 6-5 shootout win by the Canadians over Russia was a great example. Canada held four separate leads — 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 and 4-3 — before Russia finally strung two goals together and was up 5-4 in the dying seconds of the game. A miss on a long-range attempt at an empty netter gave Canada one last chance with about 40 seconds left, and they managed to keep the puck in off the faceoff and allow Oilers prospect Jordan Eberle to whack in a goal with 5.4 seconds to spare.

Heady stuff.

After 10 minutes of overtime, the game unfortunately went to a coin flip contest — although having John Tavares doing some of the flipping turns the odds slightly in one's favour, I suppose. Canada scored twice, goaltender Dustin Tokarski stopped two shots and now they're up against Sweden on Monday night.

If you can, make sure you catch that one.

Canada honestly hasn't been all that great in the tournament, but there are only four decent teams this year and one — the Americans — was bumped out by Slovakia the other night. Sweden, however, will be a real test, especially for a team that's struggled in goal and on defence and that could be looking at a couple major lineup tweaks for the finals.

Putting Chet Pickard in goal, for one, isn't out of the question despite the fact he's had to make 23 saves all tournament.

John Tavares and Cody Hodgson were relatively quiet in the semi-final game, and given they have provided a ton of the team's scoring — 14 and 13 points, double almost every other player — getting them going will be key. Sweden is going to stick big man Victor Hedman out there in all key situations, and that'll be the matchup I'm sure we'll all be sick to death of hearing about come Monday night.

It's a battle between the two top players in the 2009 entry draft, and they're sure to go head to head.

Another player who could step up, given he played in the NHL this season, is Alex Pietrangelo. Canadian captain Thomas Hickey has really struggled on the back end and is likely to see more of the bench in the final.

Like Canada, Sweden's undefeated, but their tournament's been more impressive. Big lanky netminder Jacob Markstrom, an 18-year-old Panthers draft pick (31st overall last June), has allowed half as many goals as Tokarski and has a .954 save percentage to boot.

Sweden also made short work of Russia in the round robin, easily winning 5-0 and playing a very disciplined game. They've taken just 42 PIM all tournament, second to only Finland and 14 fewer than Canada (who had one misconduct).

Sweden's leading scorer so far is Mikael Backlund with five goals, while defenceman Erik Karlsson leads the way with nine points. Both are already drafted (Backlund by Calgary, Karlsson by Ottawa), unlike 11 of their teammates who are eligible this June.

In other words, expect a lot of scouts to be in attendance on Monday night.

This is the strongest Swedish draft class I can ever remember, with Hedman to go in the top two, Magnus Svensson-Paajarvi ranked in the top 10, and David Rundblad and Jacob Josefson in the top 20.

Then there's captain Oscar Moller, who turns 20 in about two weeks and had 13 points in 30 games with Los Angeles in the NHL prior to this tournament. He and Matt Tedenby, a Devils' first rounder, could both break out in the final after scoring only once apiece so far.

They're a dangerous team, and it should be a great final. Sweden won silver last year after losing to Canada in the final, and that was their first medal in the tourney in 12 years.

Sweden last won gold in 1981, 28 years ago, and long before any of the current crop of players were born. This would be a big deal for them to win.

And it'll be a big deal if Canada loses, of course.