It wasn’t their greatest game of the pre-tournament, but Canada managed to get by Finland 5-2 last night at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.
Canada fell behind for the first time in the opening frame when Henri Tuominen scored at 11:44 on a shot that Canadian goaltender Mark Visentin had no chance at stopping.
In the second period, captain Ryan Ellis tied the match 28 seconds in before Ryan Johansen gave Canada a 2-1 advantage at 12:07. The two teams would go into the final stanza tied at 2-2 however as Erik Haula snipped a shot past the blocker of Visentin.
In the third, the home team began to pour it on, outshooting Finland 13-7. Sean Couturier, Quinton Howden, and Johansen all scored in the final 20-minutes to earn a 5-2 victory and improve to 3-0 in exhibition play.
“If our third period was our first, I’d like that better,” Canada’s coach Dave Cameron said to QMI Agency, “but we showed what we needed to do (in a tight game).”
Visenten played well in goal, stopping 18 shots in his second start of pre-tournament play. It isn’t known if Visenten or Olivier Roy will get the start Sunday when Canada opens the World Junior Hockey Championships against Russia.
HOTEL TIME
The city of Buffalo will be selling a few hotel rooms over the next couple of weeks.
THE OTHER GAME
There was another pre-tournament game that had interest to Sea Dogs fans as Tomas Jurco’s Slovaks took on Stanislav Galiev’s Russians yesterday in Jamestown, New York.
Russia won the game 6-2 thanks to a Maxim Kitsyn hat trick. Kitsyn played in the Subway Super Series that was staged at Harbour Station in November.
"Its all about my teammates," Kitsyn said to the Dunkirk Observer. "I was just in the right place at the right time.
Neither Jurco nor Galiev were mentioned in the Observer’s recap, and the Russian Hockey Federation’s website shows neither getting in on the scoring.
DOUBLE DION
Toronto Maple Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf on the world juniors:
No comments:
Post a Comment