Moncton, NB – Heading into the Junior World Championships, Canada continued to impress in pre-season games with a 6-1 victory over Slovakia on Wednesday at Center Avenir.
Joshua Roy, 1 goal, 1 assist Colton Dash, Brandt Clarke, Zack Dean, Brennan Osman and Dylan Guenther each scored for Canada.
Conor Bedard and Shane Wright each had 16 assists and Benjamin Goudreau blocked 16 shots.
“I think we played better tonight and were able to improve in some areas. We’ve been more holistic in our decision-making, but there are still some issues that need to be worked out before the tournament,” Wright said.
“It is expected that when you meet in these events, everyone tries to adapt to the new systems and play with different players, but I think we made a few steps forward today and we will continue to improve with each match.”
Samuel Hunzik scored the only goal for Slovakia, while Patrick Andreczek made 41 saves.
Canada was 2-for-6 on power and Slovakia 0-for-5. The Canadians outscored their opponents by a score of 47-17.
Canada coach Dennis Williams said, “We handled the puck better tonight, but we were a little bit scared at times. We didn’t have a good first half, but we got the ball back the second time and played a tougher, more Canadian style.”
“We had a lot of chances in the second and third half and maybe we could have scored a few more goals without the goalkeeper.”
Going into the third period 3-0, Osman stretched out the lead 37 seconds into the frame with a nod to the power play. Roy scored six seconds later.
Honzek blocked Gaudreau’s shutout attempt at 2:24 into the period. But it was as close as Slovakia could get.
Guenther made it 6-1 with a power play goal 10:43 into the frame.
Clark gave Canada a 2-0 lead at 7:03 of a second. Dean quickly followed that up with another goal 21 seconds later.
Canada outscored Slovakia 23-1 in a dramatic turnaround from a 12-7 lead that the Canadiens held after halftime.
Dach opened the scoring at 6:20 in the first period.
Canada beat Switzerland 6-0 on Monday. Canada completed its exhibition schedule against Finland on Friday before heading into its first global junior competition on December 26 against the Czech Republic in Halifax.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on December 21, 2022.
