EDMONTON — So far, it has been almost too easy for the Canadian junior team. As the squad prepares to face Finland on Monday in a game that will decide who finishes atop Group A at the world junior hockey championship, the host's biggest enemy might just be complacency. Watch tonight's game LIVE on TSN3, TSN5 and TSN.ca at 6pm ET/3pm PT. So far, it’s been a walk in the park for the Canadian juniors.
They’ve swept aside Latvia, Slovakia and Czechia by an aggregate score of 21-4. And, in those two wins, there were two standout performances in goal, from Latvia’s Patriks Berzins and Czechia’s Tomas Suchanek.
Over the three wins, they’ve outshot their opponents 145-70. “Obviously, the shots were very high for us in both games,” defenceman Olen Zellweger said about the Canadian wins over Slovakia and Czechia. “That’s very good for us.
I guess if you would have said that I’d be shocked (by the size of wins), I guess I would have been a little bit. But our team is good and that’s our goal — shoot the puck, retrieve it and keep creating that offence.” The Finns have won all three of their group games — though the Finns needed a shootout to dispatch the Czechs.