Defenceman double dips
Parayko scores twice as Canada downs Norway 5-0 at hockey worlds
Colton Parayko scored twice as Canada clinched first place in its preliminary-round group with a 5-0 win over Norway on Monday at the world hockey championship.
Both of Parayko’s goals came on the power play as Canada went 4-for-5 with the man advantage. Brayden Schenn and Ryan O’Reilly also scored with Canada a man up, while Mark Scheifele added an evenstrength goal.
Chad Johnson stopped all 10 Norwegian shots he faced for his first shutout of the tournament.
Coming off a 3-2 overtime loss to Switzerland on Saturday, the Canadians started Monday’s game with a series of early setbacks. O’Reilly missed high and wide on a penalty shot, Wayne Simmonds had a nice tic-tac-toe goal waived off, then Canada was whistled for having too many players on the ice.
But a successful penalty kill seemed to energize the team.
Schenn opened the scoring with 2:12 to play in the first by shovelling a point shot from Chris Lee past Norwegian goaltender Henrik Haukeland while Mathias Olind served a crosschecking penalty.
Less than a minute later, with Olind back in the box on a holding call, Parayko extended the lead to 2-0 by threading wrist shot through traffic and over Haukeland’s glove hand.
In the second period, Scheifele deposited a rebound from a Mike Matheson shot past Haukeland for his first goal of the tournament, then Parayko notched his second of the game on a big power-play slap shot with 1:46 to play in the middle frame.
O’Reilly added a fourth powerplay goal to put Canada up 5-0 in the late stages of the third period, while Norway failed to record a shot over the last 20 minutes.
Canadian coach Jon Cooper continued to alternate Johnson and Calvin Pickard from game to game. Johnson has now allowed four goals in his three starts.
The Norwegians briefly pulled Haukeland in favour of Steffen Soberg in the third period, but he returned to finish the game after dealing with an equipment issue. Canada fired 48 shots at Norway’s net.
Canada’s win guarantees it first place in Group B and eliminates Norway from quarterfinal contention. Switzerland, Czech Republic and Finland will also advance from Group B.
The Canadians play their last preliminary-round game today against Finland.
The quarter-finals take place on Thursday in Paris and Cologne, Germany.