Canadians regroup after upset by Swiss
PARIS— Jon Cooper had a simple message following Canada’s first loss at the world hockey championships on Saturday: Just move on to the next game.
“This situation that we’re going through — I’m glad we’re going through at this stage of the tournament, and not in an elimination game,” Canada’s head coach said following a stunning 3-2 overtime loss to Switzerland, Canada’s first at the world championships since a 4-0 preliminary-round defeat against Finland last year. “We just move on, that’s it.” Fabrice Herzog’s second goal of the game was the overtime winner. Herzog beat Calvin Pickard at the 3:40 mark of the extra period after the Swiss (2-2-1) erased a 2-0 deficit in the third.
“Nobody lays over for Canada,” said Cooper. “This is the one that gets circled on the calendar. The Swiss compete really hard. When they play like that, you’re going to get games like this sometimes. They deserved (the win).”
Leonardo Genoni came on in relief for Switzerland and stopped all 35 shots he faced.
Genoni, who had two shutouts earlier in the tournament, relieved starter Jonas Hiller at the 6:28 mark of the first period. Hiller was making his second start, but was beaten twice on 10 Canadian shots.
Ryan O’Reilly opened the scoring for Canada (4-0-1) on the power play at 4:22 of the first period, picking up his own rebound and depositing it off a sprawling Hiller.
Mitch Marner doubled the lead just over two minutes later when his pass attempt bounced into the net off Swiss defender Romain Loeffel. “I was just trying cut it across to (Brayden Point) there,” said Marner. “It went off a skate and luckily it went in.”
Switzerland cut the lead to 2-1 with 13:23 to play in the third on Herzog’s power-play goal while Mike Matheson served a delay-of-game penalty.
The heavily pro-Swiss crowd at AccorHotels Arena exploded in jubilation just over three minutes later as Vincent Praplan beat Pickard to tie the game 2-2.
Pickard faced 25 shots through three periods, 12 of them in the third. He finished the game with 23 saves.
“They got that first goal and I kind of gave them one off a bad bounce and it’s 2-2,” said Pickard. “We pressed pretty hard, just couldn’t score.”
Canada remained in first place in Group B, two points ahead of Switzerland. Earlier on Saturday in Paris, Finland beat Norway 3-2 and Slovenia failed to avoid relegation after a 5-2 defeat by Belarus.
In Group A action in Cologne, Germany, the United States beat Latvia 5-3, Russia remained unbeaten with a6-0 shutout of Slovakia and Germany beat Italy 4-1.