Canada And Sweden Remain Group Front-Runners With Second Straight Wins
Switzerland 1 – Canada 9 (0-0, 0-1, 1-8)
Through two periods, the shots were 32-8 in Canada's favor but the score remained 1-0 before the floodgates opened in the third.
'It's another good lesson for our young group,' said Canadian coach Mathieu Turcotte. 'We had to stick with it and we changed a few lines. (Mathis) Preston and the Ruck twins (Liam and Markus) got things going for us and we put up eight in the third period.'
With the Okanagan trio playing together, Preston scored three goals in the third period – two were assisted by Markus and one by Liam.
'I think it was kind of a matter of time before we started playing together,' said Preston. 'We played together at the U-17s, did pretty well there, and obviously, our whole lives we've been playing together growing up. They're unreal players and I couldn't have done it out there without them.'
Canada Edges Finland, Sweden Wins Big In Hlinka Gretzky Cup Openers Ethan Belchetz had three points and defensemen Keaton Verhoeff and Ryan Lin had two points each, leading Canada to a 5-3 opening-day victory over Finland at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup's Group A in Brno, Czechia.
'It's something we put together at the U-17s,' said Turcotte, who coached the trio for the Canada White team at last year's World Hockey Challenge. 'Preston was one of the top scorers in that tournament with Markus and Liam, so we figured we'd give it a shot after two periods today. Maybe we shouldn't have waited that long.'
Yanis Lutz of the OHL's Peterborough Petes scored the lone Swiss goal.
Sweden 5 – USA 3 (0-2, 2-1, 3-0)
In a game that was probably destined to decide the winner of the Trenčín group, the Americans led 2-0 after one period and 3-1 midway through the second, but the Swedes got one goal late in the middle frame and then scored three in a span of 1:26 midway through the third to match the Canadians with their second straight win.
Malte Gustafsson, Elton Hermansson and Marcus Nordmark had three points each for the Swedes, while goaltender Douglas Nilsson stopped 41 of 44 shots to keep his team within striking distance before the comeback.
Swedish Prospect Elton Hermansson Looks Up To Peter Forsberg and Markus Näslund Elton Hermansson, a member of Sweden's U-18 national team that is about to begin the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, scored two goals in the team's pre-tournament game on Saturday against Finland in Piestany, Slovakia. However, that output seemed a bit lost in Sweden's 8-4 loss.
Late games
In the two evening games, the winner of Czechia and Finland will probably determine the second team that win advance from the Brno group along with Canada, and the Slovakia-Germany game in Trenčín will probably decide which will play in the game for fifth place and which will play in the game for seventh on Friday.
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