Canada finished third in Group A after beating France 7-1 in their final round-robin game on Tuesday at the Ice Hockey World Championship in Finland.
Posted yesterday at 5:50 p.m.
Pierre-Luc Dubois of the Winnipeg Jets, Dylan Cozens of the Buffalo Sabers and Drake Batherson of the Ottawa Senators were the offensive mainstays of the win.
Dubois had two goals and an assist, Cozens had a goal and two assists while Batherson had four assists. Zach Whitecloud also played his part with a goal and an assist.
“We are happy with our performance tonight. We didn’t want to give other teams opportunities to score or expose our defence, it was part of our game plan. We don’t need to respond in quick succession to the teams during a match. You just have to limit the scoring opportunities you give and take advantage of the ones you get,” said Dubois.
Maxime Comtois, Eric O’Dell and Damon Severson scored the other goals for Canada, which led 44 pucks in the direction of goaltender Sebastian Ylonen.
On the other end, Chris Driedger only had to block 18 shots to earn the win. Anthony Rech deprived him of a shutout at 8:20 of the third period.
“I liked the full effort we put in for 60 minutes tonight. We did what was necessary and we improved certain aspects of our game that we wanted to work on. We circulated the puck much better, we took more shots and we won in front of the opposing net. I’m happy with the response from the players today,” said head coach Claude Julien.
With this win, Canada (5-0-2-0 -15 points) finished behind Switzerland (6-1-0-0 -20 points) and Germany (5-0-1-1 -16 points) ).
In the quarter-finals on Thursday, the Canadian team will try to overcome Sweden (5-1-0-1 -18 points) which ranked second in Group B, one point behind Finland. The start of the meeting is scheduled for 9:20 a.m., Quebec time, Thursday morning.
“We knew that whichever team was waiting for us in the quarter-finals, they would be a tough opponent. We will have to be patient against Sweden, but we know we have character, and our players are ready to take up the challenge. »
In the other matches of the quarter-final round on Thursday, the Czech Republic (3and of Group B), will cross swords with Germany, Switzerland will face the United States (4and of group B), while Finland will face Slovakia (4and of group A).
The semi-finals will take place on Saturday and the medal matches will be presented on Sunday.