Canada drops opener to Americans in shootout
McDavid unable to shoot in tiebreaker as Canada falls 5-4 to rivals at worlds
HERNING, Denmark — With Connor McDavid forced to watch a shootout from the bench, Canada opened the 2018 world hockey championship by coming up short against the archrival Americans.
Cam Atkinson scored the shootout winner to give the United States a 5-4 victory over Canada on Friday morning.
Atkinson’s second shootout goal gave the U.S a 2-1 edge midway through the sixth round of the extra session.
Jordan Eberle had a chance to tie for Canada, but he couldn’t beat American goalie Keith Kinkaid.
McDavid, Canada’s captain and offensive catalyst, was ineligible for the shootout after taking a penalty late in overtime.
“It’s not fun to watch your team go through a shootout, especially when you’re an offensive guy and you’d obviously like to be out there,” he said. “I thought the guys did a nice job of hanging in there.”
Canada showed plenty of speed and skill, but had to come back from two one-goal deficits to force overtime before falling in the shootout.
“They played well,” Canada forward Brayden Schenn said. “We know we can play better.
“In a shootout, anything can happen. It sucks losing the first game, but it’s a learning lesson. It’s a long tournament.”
The Canadians outshot the U.S. 44-24 through 65 minutes at Jyske Bank Boxen in Herning, Denmark.
“Both teams off the start were loose,” McDavid said. “We didn’t play well defensively, they didn’t play well defensively.
“We got out to the lead we wanted, but our game got away from us. I like the way we were able to compete and get ourselves back in the game and earn at least one point.”
Canada held the early edge in play and jumped out to a 2-0 first-period lead on goals from Pierre-Luc Dubois and Ryan O’Reilly. But the Americans stuck with their game plan and found a way to exploit Darcy Kuemper, who struggled with shots to his blocker side.
Canada’s next game is Sunday against South Korea, starting at 3:15 a.m. PT.