Canada headed to gold-medal final
Russians no match as hungry home side continues quest for gold with 5-0 win
At the Montreal Canadiens' first training camp practice Monday, captain Shea Weber sidled up to Russian rookie defenceman Alexander Romanov while he was riding the bike to see if he wanted to place a friendly bet on the world junior game.
Romanov, who was the Russians' best player in 2020, kept pedalling. No wager was made.
“He didn't seem too confident,” said Weber, the former Canadian junior team defenceman, as related in a tweet by TSN'S John Lu. Smart kid. Saved some money. Even without what would have been Canada's top premier forwards — 2020 No. 1 overall pick Alexis Lafreniere, who is at New York Rangers camp, and Kirby Dach, who broke his wrist in a pre-tournament exhibition when he checked Ilya Safonov — the ridiculously deep Canadian team scored early and often on Nashville's first-round pick, Yaroslav Askarov, as they whipped coach Igor Larionov's team 5-0.
In the spirited world junior series with their longtime rival, Canada is now 21-19-2 with one suspended game: the wild brawl in Piestany, Czech Republic, in 1987. Canada, which always has a good team when the NHL isn't playing through lockouts or pandemics, had pretty much everything going for it on the ice and in the video booth — coach Andre Tourigny challenged a power-play goal by Mikhail Abramov that would have made it 4-1 late in the second period for an offside play by defenceman Semyon Chistyakov.
They won that call on what appeared to be a weak decision; Chistyakov appeared to have dragged his toe across the blueline as the puck went in and when it was wiped out, the look on Larionov's face was “are you kidding me?”
In the game's first minute, Alex Newhook, who missed two games with a suspected sore shoulder, beat Askarov on the game's first shot on a play that went on another 29 seconds before a stoppage horn was blown by video command. That clearly showed the puck had nestled under the iron and out at the 59-second mark.
“The training staff did a great job to get me ready,” said Newhook, who played five minutes in the first period but was down to 3½ minutes in the second. “I had no idea it was in ... thought I'd hit the crossbar but then I heard the horn. Somebody on the bench said he thought it was in, then I saw it on the scoreboard.”
Then Connor Mcmichael, who started a comeback against Russia in the 2020 final when a puck went in off his heel in the third period, tapped one home after outmuscling Yan Kuznetsov, who goes to the University of Connecticut.
Cole Perfetti finished the 3-0 first period when he beat Askarov, sailing a puck past his glove on a power play with Russian captain Vasily Podkolzin in the box for swiping his stick into the face of Bowen Byram.
Braden Schneider beat Askarov, who got pulled in last year's 4-3 gold medal victory, in exactly the same spot early in the second to make it 4-0, but Larionov didn't go to his bullpen for Maple Leafs draftee Artur Akhtyamov.
Canadian goalie Devon Levi, who came into the game beaten only three times in five full games, caught a break on Abramov's goal, but the unsung kid who played Junior A last year before heading off to Northeastern University in Boston, clearly outplayed the hyped Askarov.
Levi goes through a three-hour pre-game preparation to get himself dialed in for the task ahead and it has worked wonders in the tournament.
“He's on his own page ... he's got his headphones on even during intermission ... and the way he's playing he can do whatever he wants as long as he's stopping pucks,” said Dylan Cozens, who got an empty-netter and had two assists to give him 16 points in Canada's six games.
Byram, the tournament's best defenceman, said “I don't see (Levi) much, I don't know where he goes ... I only see him when he gets to the ice.”
The teams were on equal footing only at the first faceoff. After that, it turned into an unexpected rout after last year's stirring Canadian third-period comeback in the final in Ostrava in the Czech Republic. This game started at 2 a.m. in Moscow and by 3 a.m., millions of fans might have gone back to bed.
“They're going to be hungry. They're going to come out with an extra gear. We have to watch that,” Cozens said before the blowout.
“There will be some nerves for sure, but you have to channel that into excitement and energy.”
And so Canada continues its march to the gold in a strange tournament where Germany has had the most goals against them in a game (two). And the understaffed, Covid-quarantined Germans lost by 14 to start the tournament.
This `n that: Cozens, who has eight goals, was awarded a penalty shot in the last minute of the middle frame on a breakaway. He tried to deke and the puck went wide. It was a right-handed shooter taking on a right-handed goalie — tough circumstance
... Russian goalie coach Nikolai Khabibulin's father died and the former Edmonton Oilers goaltender left for home just before the tournament ... The Russians had Columbus 2020 first-round winger Yegor Chinakhov, who might be rookie of the year in the Kontinental Hockey League, back after missing two games with a possible knee injury. Suspended forward Abramov also returned.