Canada dominant in opening win over Finns

Eetu Liukas went off for holding at 5:20 and just 32 seconds later, Canada opened the scoring on the power play when Cole Perfetti - a consensus top-10 pick in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft - took a cross-ice pass from Hendrix Lapierre and beat Joel Blomqvist on the glove side with a wrist shot just inside the near post.

Less than two minutes later it was 2-0 when the Canadians broke out of their own end quickly and, on a 2-on-2, Will Cuylle elected to keep the puck, used the defenceman as a screen and beat Blomqvist through the legs.

With less than two minutes to go in the second period, Juuso Mäenpää had a chance to bring Finland within one when he seemingly had an easy rebound but Tristan Lennox made his biggest save of the game, if not his best. Then with 37 seconds left in the period, a nice wrister from Seth Jarvis made it 3-0 and put the Canadians in firm control of the game.

The only goal of the second period came early when Ridly Greig won a battle for the puck along the boards, got a shot away, then followed up and put in his own rebound to make it 4-0 Canada. After that, a pair of Finnish penalties 18 seconds apart gave Canada a lengthy 5-on-3 that produced nothing, and then three straight Canadian penalties gave the Finns a chance to get on the board, but they failed to take advantage.

Early in the third period, Jarvis and Perfetti each added their second goals of the game to make it 6-0. Perfetti had a golden chance to score hat-trick goal with 13 minutes to play, but Blomqvist made a brilliant glove save.

All that was left to decide was Lennox’s shutout and, while Brad Lambert came very close to scoring with 3:39 to play, Lennox denied him on the goal line to preserve the goose egg.

Tomorrow, Canada opens the day by playing Switzerland, followed by a big game for Finland against the host Czechs that could go a long way towards deciding whether or not they'll advance to the semi-finals.