Canada routs France to advance to quarter-finals at men's hockey worlds

Canada is through to the quarter-finals at the men's world hockey championship after beating France 7-1 Tuesday in Helsinki, Finland.

Pierre-Luc Dubois had two goals and an assist, Dylan Cozens scored and added a pair of helpers, Zach Whitecloud put up one of each and Drake Batherson contributed four assists.

Max Comtois, Eric O'Dell and Damon Severson also scored for Canada, which improved to 5-2 in preliminary round play.

The French (1-1-5) got a goal from Anthony Rech 8:20 into the third period.

Sebastian Ylonen stopped 37-of-44 shots for France and Chris Driedger made 18 saves for Canada.

The Canadians will face Sweden in the quarter-finals on Thursday, three months after they met at the same stage of the Olympic tournament, with Sweden winning that game 2-0.

WATCH | Canada cruises past France for quarter-final berth:

The United States secured a quarter-final spot at the ice hockey world championship on the last day of group play Tuesday. It only gets harder from here.

The U.S. knew it would qualify before stepping onto the ice against Norway, thanks to Sweden's 1-0 win over Latvia earlier in the day. With the pressure off, the U.S. beat the Norwegians 4-2, with two assists from Alex Galchenyuk, to get back into the groove after its loss to the Czech Republic the day before.

Two goals in the first period set host nation Finland on course to beat the Czech Republic 3-0 as Jussi Olkinuora made 24 saves for the shutout.

Finland goes on to play Slovakia in the quarter-finals in a repeat of their Olympic semifinal game in February, while the Czech Republic takes on Germany.

A day after a shock win over Canada, Denmark missed out on the quarter-finals with a 7-1 loss to Slovakia as the 18-year-old Olympic tournament MVP