Canada Beats Switzerland 3-2 in World Junior Hockey

MacKenzie Entwistle and Noah Dobson scored second-period goals and Canada held off Switzerland 3-2 on Thursday night in the world junior hockey championship to improve to 2-0 in Group A play.

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia — MacKenzie Entwistle and Noah Dobson scored second-period goals and Canada held off Switzerland 3-2 on Thursday night in the world junior hockey championship to improve to 2-0 in Group A play.

A night after beating Denmark 14-0, the defending champion Canadians opened the scoring 36 seconds into the game on Cody Glass’ goal.

Philipp Kurashev had two power-play goals for Switzerland, tying it at 1 early in the second and cutting it to 3-2 with 1:49 left in the third.

“They’re a good team, but we got into penalty trouble, especially at the end,” Glass said. “We had some trouble with them pre-tournament. They played a good game. They play together, and they’re fast. But in the end, we came out with the win, so that’s all that matters.”

Ian Scott made 13 saves for Canada. Akira Schmid stopped 29 shots for Switzerland, coming off an overtime loss to the Czech Republic on Wednesday.

“We could have won that game, but it was a fun game to play in front of 17,000 people,” said Swiss forward Matthew Verboon, a dual Swiss-Canadian citizen. “We proved that we can play with anyone.”

In the early Group A game at Rogers Arena, Alexander Romanov had a goal and two assists and Russia opened with a 4-0 victory over Denmark.

Vitali Kravtsov added a goal and an assist for Russia, Pavel Shen and Ivan Morozov also scored, and Danil Tarasov made 20 saves.

“We learned quickly that every team here plays hard,” Russian defenseman Dmitri Samorukov said. “We knew they’d come out hard after yesterday, and that was our first period, so we came out just trying to feel the ice. We took too many penalties, but we can learn from that.”

In Group B in Victoria, Sweden beat Slovakia 5-2 to improve to 2-0 and extend its record round-robin winning streak to 46. Emil Bemstrom scored twice, and Lucas Elvenes and Isac Lundestrom each had a goal and an assist. The round-robin streak dates to 2007.

“It’s only a number, but it’s fun,” captain Erik Brannstrom said. “We’re going to do everything to keep it going.”

In the late game at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre, Filip Lindberg made 18 saves in Finland’s 5-0 victory over Kazakhstan. Otto Latvala, Aarne Talvitie, Samuli Vainionpaa, Kaapo Kakko and Aleski Heponiemi scored to help Finland rebound for an opening loss to Sweden.

Demid Yeremeyev made 51 saves for Kazakhstan.

The United States opened Group B play Wednesday night with a 2-1 victory over Slovakia. The Americans will face Kazakhstan on Friday night, play Sweden on Saturday night and complete round-robin play against Finland on Monday night.