MacKinnon’s trio leads the way against Slovenia

By his own admission he wasn’t winning any points for style, but Nathan MacKinnon’s offensive output helped power Canada to another strong performance at the world hockey championship.

MacKinnon scored a hat trick to lift Canada to a 7-2 win over Slovenia on Sunday. The victory improved Canada’s record to 2-0.

“I thought the puck was following me around,” said MacKinnon, who was named Canada’s player of the game. “I had a couple of greasy goals.”

MacKinnon also added an assist while Colorado Avalanche teammate Tyson Barrie had a goal and three assists.

Brayden Point, Mitch Marner and Jeff Skinner also had goals for Canada, while Travis Konecny added three assists.

Chad Johnson, who minds the net for the Calgary Flames, made 12 saves in his first start of the tournament.

“It’s a little different than in North America with the ice surface and everything,” Johnson said of his tournament debut. “It was nice to get in there.”

The Canadians built a 5-0 lead before Slovenia got on the scoreboard, with Jan Mursak and Jan Urbas scoring.

“We got a lesson in how to play hockey today and I think, and hope, that we learned something,” Slovenia’s coach Nik Zupancic said.

Gasper Kroselj faced 51 shots in Slovenia’s net. He was making his second start in as many days after giving up four goals on 15 shots in the first period of Slovenia’s 5-4 shootout loss to Switzerland on Saturday.

“It was one of those games — pucks were going in for us,” Team Canada head coach Jon Cooper said.

Canada faces its first back-toback situation as it takes on 0-2 Belarus on Monday. Cooper plans to go back to Calvin Pickard in net. He backstopped Canada to a 4-1 win over the Czechs in their first game of the tournament.