Unbeaten Canada ready for Finland
In the last of its appetizers before moving on to the meat and potatoes of the world junior hockey championship, Team Canada chomped down hard Tuesday on Switzerland.
Like Germany and Slovakia before them, the Swiss didn't have much flavour, but the Canadians stripped them clean to the bone anyway in a ruthless 10-0 victory.
But the Canadians say this win was more than empty calories. They saw a lot of growth in themselves, just in time for the more turbulent waters ahead.
“Each game we just keep on building,” said Canadian forward Quinton Byfield, who led the onslaught with six points. “We're building a lot of chemistry and getting more comfortable with the way they want us to play.
“I think we just keep on getting better each game and that's the way it has to be in a short tournament like this.”
The Canadians now sit 3-0 in the tournament, but in outshooting their opponents 11948 (52-15 against the Swiss), they still haven't faced a serious threat in the relatively soft A Pool.
But from here on in it gets serious, with Canada playing Finland on New Year's Eve for first place. The winner gets an easier mark in the quarter-final crossover against the much tougher B Pool (likely the Czech Republic, who've already beaten Russia), while the loser appears headed for a showdown with either Sweden, Russia or the United States.
So, in the last of their preliminary tuneups, the Canadians needed to get their game in order and exert some force, which they did, turning 1-0 after 20 minutes into 10-0 after 60.
“It doesn't look like it, but a lot happened in that game,” said head coach Andre Tourigny. “I'm really happy, not with the score but with the way our team grew during that game.
“We bounced back after a tough second half of the first period and our power play responded. That was a really good game for us to learn about ourselves, to get better as a group and get on the same page.”
After outshooting Switzerland 13-3 in the first period but only coming out of it with a 1-0 lead on Philip Tomasino's fourth of the tournament, Canada got its offence rolling in the second. They broke it open with goals from Dylan Cozens, Jakob Pelletier, Ryan Suzuki and Connor Mcmichael to take a 5-0 lead into the second intermission (with the shots 37-7).
It was over at that point, but they still had to play the third, which Byfield used to put his own exclamation point on the night.
The second-overall draft pick by the L.A. Kings had two goals and an assist to go along with three assists in the first 40 minutes, before Cole Perfetti, Kaiden Guhle and Pelletier added to the carnage.