US dominates Denmark, Sweden remains flawless

Two days after being shut out, the USA blew out Switzerland 10-1 on Wednesday in pool play at the World Junior Championship in Helsinki, Finland.

Team USA’s top line of Austin Matthews (two goals, two assists), Matthew Tkachuk (two goals, one assist) and Boston College’s Colin White (one goal, two assists) dominated the Swiss, who pulled goalie Joren Van Pottelberghe after allowing the fifth goal.

It wasn’t ten, like they put up versus Switzerland on Wednesday, but it was enough to earn their third win of the preliminaries, finishing 3-0-0-1 with nine points to clinch the second spot in Group A.

The Canadians, who had the day off, are also 2-1 but have one less point because only one of their victories came in regulation time. Matthews has registered a point in every game except for the 1-0 loss to unbeaten Sweden.

Team USA, which won two of its first three games in the preliminary round, will play in the quarterfinals Saturday.

Mitch Marner had two power-play goals in the third period for Canada.

The U.S. will face Russian Federation in the semifinals Monday, and Finland will face Sweden. Sweden will play Slovakia in the quarterfinals, and Canada will face Finland.

Lauta scored in the first period off assists from Alexander Mikulovich and Ivan Provorov, and Rykov made it 2-0 midway through the second period.

17 year-old Finnish forward Jesse Puljujarvi continues to shine, scoring two goals and now leads the entire tournament in scoring with an astounding 12 points in just four games. Russian Federation has scored 14 goals this tournament, so that’s about 29% of the offense he’s been in on – not bad. The game will be broadcast live on the NHL Network.

Shoveling the load for them though has been Michael Spacek (2G, 2A).

Colorado Springs native and Team USA defenseman Brandon Carlo was named as the American player of the game for a 4-1 win over Denmark Thursday.

Scott Eansor of United States of America, right, scoring to bring the score to 5-0, behind goalkeeper Ales Stezka of Czech Republic, during the 2016 IIHF World Junior Ice Hockey Championships quarterfinal match between US and Czech Republic in Helsinki, Finland, on January 2nd, 2016.