Auston Matthews scored the lone goal in a shootout and Keith Kinkaid was steady in net as Team USA kept its bid to medal for a second straight year alive with a 2-1 quarterfinal win over the Czech Republic at the IIHF World Championship in Moscow, Russia on Thursday.
The U.S. will play the winner of this afternoon's matchup between Canada and Sweden – scheduled for 1:15 p.m. EST on NBCSN – in the Semifinal Round on Saturday.
After finishing in fourth place in Group B in the Preliminary Round, the U.S. came in as underdogs against a Czech Republic team that finished atop Group A and hadn’t lost a game in regulation.