“The fans and everyone else wants a Canada-U.S. [final],” said United States forward Paul Stastny, who scored a goal in his team’s 6-1 blowout of Finland in the semifinals. “And those are always fun to be part of.”

The two teams met one week ago — a surprising 5-3 victory for the United States during pool play. That allowed the Americans to secure the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed and kept them on the opposite side of the bracket from powers Canada, Russia and Sweden. That first game was watched at its peak by 13 million television viewers in Canada — a country with a population of 33.3 million. In the United States the game drew 8.22 million viewers despite airing on cable network MSNBC.

But can the Americans duplicate that win on the sport’s biggest stage? They were simply brilliant against the Finns on Friday, blitzing the defending Olympic silver medalists with six goals in the first 12 minutes, 46 seconds. It was a performance every bit as impressive as Canada’s 7-3 win over Russia in the quarterfinals.

“Hopefully, we can put that kind of performance on the ice on Sunday,” said United States goalie Ryan Miller. “That was a very good game for us. We were very organized. I think we even took our foot off the gas to conserve some energy.”

That’s important considering the Canadians are playing for the fourth time in six days. Seeded No. 6 entering the elimination round, they had to play in a first-round game before even reaching the quarterfinals.

It is the second time in three Olympics that the United States and Canada will play for hockey gold. The last time, the roles were reversed. In 2002 the Americans were trying to win in front of their home fans in Salt Lake City, but faltered in a 5-2 loss.

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