Sweden beats United States 1-Zero at world juniors on Nylander aim

Three out of four games isn’t bad as four Chicago Blackhawks prospects will be in action on Day 3 of the World Junior Championship. After Sebastian Aho countered with a goal to give Finland a 5-4 lead, Marner buried another power play goal moments later to once again tie the game.

This year’s Canadian team has struggled in the preliminary round. Denmark is coming off a 6-1 beating from Canada. “Doesn’t matter what happened, just get ready for the quarter-finals”. Unfortunately, the euphoric feeling of success was not to last. The Swiss were thrashed by Sweden 8-3 in their opener. On the other side of the rink, Canada entered with their own unsafe talents, including high-flying forwards Dylan Strome and Mitch Marner.

“It’s a quick recovery here”, said Travis Konecny, who threw several big hits to energize Canada in the second period.

Canada played all four of its preliminary round games at Helsinki Ice Hall, the smaller of the two venues hosting the world juniors. Most fans were expecting the Swiss to pose little problem, and though a 10-1 victory wasn’t expected, it certainly wasn’t supposed to as close as it was. And nowhere is this more apparent than with Jake Virtanen. Heading into the tournament, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ prospect had hoped to be one of the top offensive players, not just on his team but in the entire tournament. Marner is third in OHL points with 22 goals and 36 assists for the London Knights, Strome is fifth in the league with 16 goals and 37 assists for the Erie Otters and Perlini has 13 goals and nine assists with the Niagara IceDogs.

Canada failed to medal in 2013 and 2014, losing in the bronze-medal game to Russian Federation both times. Virtanen needs to produce some points.

At 7:20 of the second, Lawson Crouse scores on a turnover as Canada takes a 3-2 lead. You don’t mind penalties that are preventing goals and that, but we just have to be mindful. Jiri Smejkal and Michael SPacek had a goal and an assist each while David Sklenicka and Jan Ordos also scored for the Czech Republic.

Canada, the defending tournament champion, started the contest strong, scoring on three of its first 10 shots. The Canadian team will need solid performances going forward if they’re to make a deep push in the World Junior Championship.

Undisciplined play and a lethal Finnish offense eliminate Canada.

Between them, in the games that really mattered against the U.S., Sweden and the Finns, Team Canada’s goaltenders coughed up 14 goals. Canada can’t expect to hand top-flight opponents advantages and remain unscathed. The goal was Finland’s 29th in the tournament, more than any other team has managed.

“We talked about this tournament and experience and how critical it is”.

The Canadian entry in the annual event wrapped up the round robin on Thursday with a 5-2 loss to Sweden and heads into the quarter-finals on the weekend with a 2-2 record. Sweden finishes the tournament 4-0-0-0 and right now, appears to be the team to beat.