Canada would eventually win 2 – 1 on the back of Subban’s 36 saves and a pair of goals from Ryan Strome and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in the first period.
Captain Nugent-Hopkins continued his impressive form for Canada, opening the scoring and adding to his tournament leading point total.
Strome doubled the lead soon after, scoring his fourth goal in Ufa, after Brett Ritchie dished a pass out front from behind the net.
It was a definite goaltending duel, both goalies keeping the game scoreless in the second period, while the referees seemed intent on letting the teams play; just four minor penalties in the first forty minutes.
Jacob Trouba made things interesting in the third as he scored midway into the final period on a powerplay with Strome in the box for a delay of game penalty.
But the game turned sour in the final 10 minutes, Jake McCabe given a penalty for Checking to the head and a 10-minute misconduct, before Tyler Bigs and Trouba also ended up in the box.
Ryan Hartman continued the parade to the box for Team USA, going off for another checking to the head minor and a 10-minute misconduct, but with extended 5 on 3 opportunities Canada was unable to break past USA goalie John Gibson.
Wasting their chance, it was Canada on the backfoot for the final minutes as both Jonathan Huberdeau and Nugent-Hopkins found themselves penalized, but Subban was able to stand tall in the final moments for a 2 – 1 Canada win.
Gibson made a number of key saves and continued his strong performance in UFA, he had 30 saves in the loss.
Subban and Gibson were players of the game for their respective teams, underlining the strong goalie performances of the pair.
Mooseheads Watch
Jonathan Drouin & Nathan MacKinnon [2 Shots] – The two of them started on the second line with Ryan Strome, but Head Coach Spott mixed things up throughout the game. The two played well and had bright spots, but it was a very quiet game by their standards. Just two shots mustered over 60 minutes between the two.
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Henry is a writer for Sportstream.ca and part of the The Sports Show on 88.1 CKDU every Thursday Morning at 9am. You can follow him on twitter at @HenryWhitfield , where he live tweets his thoughts during each Mooseheads game.