year gold-medal drought Sunday, rallying to dethrone Canada 5-4 in the final of the World Ice Hockey Championships on Sunday. With the win, Russia captures its first gold since 1993 and extends its winning streak at the worlds to nine-straight games. Finland beat Sweden 4-0 on Saturday to win the bronze medal to go with a silver it captured in 2007. Canada picked up the silver Sunday and suffered its first loss at the worlds since the bronze medal game in 2006 to Finland. Ilya Kovalchuk scored the winner on the powerplay with 2:42 gone in the overtime, firing a wrist shot from 25 feet out that beat Canadian goalie Cam Ward in front of a crowd of 13,339 at the Colisee arena. Kovalchuk, who just returned from a suspension, also scored the game-tying goal with just over five minutes left in the third to make it 4-4.Canada's Rick Nash took a delay of game penalty 2:42 into the sudden death overtime and the Russians countered by throwing out four forwards on the powerplay. Kovalchuk and Alexander Semin each scored twice and Alexei Tereshchenko scored once for Russia which trailed 4-2 heading into the third before coming back to score the final three goals of the game. Brent Burns scored twice and Chris Kunitz, Dany Heatley, with his tournament leading 12th goal, scored singles for Canada. With the teams tied after regulation the game went into a 20-minute sudden death overtime with four skaters on each side instead of the regular five a side. Kovalchuk's winner means Russia scored on the first and last shot of the game as Semin opened the scoring for the Big Red Machine just one minute and 23 seconds into the first. Dany Heatley was named Most Valuable Player and top forward at the worlds. Heatley's teammate Brent Burns was voted top defenseman while Russia's Evgeni Nabokov was named best netminder. Penguins rout Flyers In Pittsburg, Ryan Malone, the one Penguins player with firsthand memories of the team's two previous Stanley Cup appearances, scored twice and set up a third goal as Pittsburgh routed rival Philadelphia 6-0 Sunday to win the Eastern Conference championship and a trip to the NHL Finals. The Penguins, dominating Game 5 from the start with Malone and Evgeni Malkin scoring in the first 10 minutes, will play the winner of the Detroit-Dallas series for the Stanley Cup. The Red Wings take a 3-2 series lead into Dallas for Game 6 of the Western Conference finals Monday night.
