Canada, recovering well from an awkward performance the day before, showed a much better face against Germany at the U18 Ice Hockey World Championships as they won 8-0 in Porrentruy, Switzerland on Friday.
In its second game of the preliminary round, the maple leaf had the difficult task of making people forget the bitter 8-0 defeat against Sweden. After this unusual outing, the Canadians reassured their coach Jeff Truitt.
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This tournament is one of the last chances for some good prospects in the upcoming National Hockey League draft to impress. Matthew Wood, ranked in the top five North American skaters by Central Scouting, stood out with two goals.
Callum Ritchie and Nick Lardis (three times), two other players who could hear their names in the first round, also scored but it was defender Lukas Dragicevic who scored the best goal of the game. The Tri-City Americans defenseman sped across the rink to defeat goaltender Leon Willerscheid with a good shot.
“It’s good for the team to have won the game, but the tournament is far from over. Everyone here is offensively gifted, we have good punching power and a lot of players blacked out the scorers’ list today [vendredi], Wood said in a statement. It’s very good for the team’s confidence and we’ll do everything we can to keep going.”
“The game was important for our group. After yesterday’s failure we had to look ahead and find the right path. I think we were very dynamic in the forecheck and played very well defensively. If we can do that, it will give us a lot of chances in the offensive zone, says Lardis. So we have to keep working in that direction.”
Caretaker little busy
Quebec goalkeeper Gabriel D’Aigle started again as a substitute, having come on from Carson Bjarnason’s loss the day before. The latter gained Truitt’s confidence and blocked 11 shots to blind the Germans.
Canada have a day off before taking on Slovakia on Sunday.