Canada took an early lead thanks in large part to the only three power plays in the opening stages. They capitalized on the first with a beautiful three-way passing game from the rush. Zellweger circle-fed Bedard and he found Dylan Guenther at the back for an easy goal at 6:46.
Less than five minutes later, however, the Germans leveled the game with a goal that reeked of fans hoping for better goalkeeping from the home side tonight. Roman Kechter’s easy wrist shot leaked through Thomas Milic’s pads at 11:08 a.m. as fans groaned in dismay. Milic played the final half of the team’s first game after replacing Benjamin Gaudreau, who conceded five goals on a poor night. However, Milic responded and was solid for the rest of the night.
But whatever. Canada scored again on the power play when Wright slammed home a loose puck from the crease. Four minutes later, Bedard blinded. Logan Stankoven fed him an escape pass that was behind him, but Bedard turned and controlled the puck, going in alone and blasting past Simon Wolf’s outstretched glove with a perfect shot at 17:26 to make it 3-1.
Bedard scored his second goal after a German miss just 62 seconds into the middle. Wolf tried to play a loose puck wide of the goal but defender Rayan Bettahar hit his racquet and the puck trickled forward where Bedard slammed it into the open goal.
He scored the hat-trick at 1:57 p.m. on another power play by wiring a high shot over Wolf’s glove. Soon after, Bettahar received a match penalty for a headshot against Adam Fantilli, and Canada exploded in record style, scoring four goals in just over three minutes with the extra skater. Two of them came from beautiful cross-ice passes from Bedard to Günther.
Brandt Clarke scored another point shot and Logan Stankoven ended the attack with a narrow goal with just 3.2 seconds left. Canada’s five power-play goals that half set a new U20s record, and after 40 minutes Bedard had six points that night.
Canada pulled off a double-digit 1:22 win into third with a long, high shot from Zack Ostapchuk, who defeated Rihards Babulis, who came on for a besieged Wolf and made his debut for Team Germany.
Bedard grabbed his seventh point, another assist, as the fans started the wave. He slung the length of the ice and dropped it to Joshua Roy, who leveled a shot past Babulis to make it 11-1.
Germany won their second game of the night in a power play of their own, a long blast from Philip Sinn going all the way.