5 things to watch in Canada vs. Finland

It is Blackwood’s third start of the tournament. Losses to the Americans and Sweden highlighted some of the problems with discipline and utilizing scoring depth. Instead of a 5-on-3, where Canada could have taken a two-goal lead, it stayed at 5-on-4 and the power play ended without a goal. Although he looked dominant all tournament, that was his first.

Travis Konecny, Dylan Strome and Lawson Crouse also scored for Canada. Patrik Laine’s goal at 19:49 cut the lead in half. Puljujarvi (10), Aho (7) and Laine (7) now lead the tournament in points. Kahkonen stopped 23 of the 25 shots he faced and Finland scored two late goals in the second period to take a 4-3 lead. The keys to today’s Team Canada win were to quit taking bad penalties while maintaining pressure on the opposition for a full 60 minutes. Jake Virtanen would collect the lone assist for his first point of the tournament.

The United States (3-1-0-0), which was without injured Otters winger Alex DeBrincat for the past two games, are second in Group A, and face Group B third-place finisher Czech Republic (2-1-0-1) on Saturday at 1 p.m. But disaster struck with just 11 seconds left in the period. Those struggles largely fall at the feet of Veini Vehvilainen, who has started three of Finland’s games.

Aleksi Saarela, Julius Nattinen and Antti Kalapudas also scored for Finland.

“First and foremost, we certainly tried to put the best team on the ice that we could this year”, said Renney.

Head coach Dave Lowry has been tinkering with his forward lines throughout the tournament and often period to period.

The two teams traded goals early in the third period, with Marner scoring twice on the power play.

The Canadians weren’t giving up the defence of their title without a fight, however, and Mitch Marner restored parity once again to level the pulsating contest at 4-4.

Canada would not trail for long. Shortly after, Canada was handed a penalty for slashing, allowing Finland to get in back-to-back goals on the power play. The host country bounced the reigning champions from the tournament with the 6-5 victory.

Canada, which took 10 penalties in a 5-2 loss against Sweden in the preliminary round, was penalized nine times against Finland.

Thus, the 2015-16 tournament will be remembered for all the wrong reasons across the Great White North, but elsewhere, Canada’s early exit from a tournament they’ve dominated since its inception will be greeted with great cheer.

Canada outshot Finland by a 34-29 margin and finished 2/5 on the power play while Finland went 2/8 on their power play chances. That trend looks to continue.

Sweden got goals from six different players in a 6-0 victory over Slovakia. He was arguably the worst of the 19-year-old players in the loss, but he wasn’t the only one whose performance was lacking. Virtanen, a returnee from last year’s gold medal-winning team, was jettisoned in from the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks on the final day of the December selection camp in Toronto.