Team Canada may have dropped a sloppy comeback loss to Team USA in their outdoor game yesterday – but who cares, when you’ve just clinched the top spot in Group A?
Canada managed an absolute beatdown on Denmark on Saturday evening, pulling off a merciless 8-0 shutout win over the fringe hockey country with goals from just about everyone on the Canadian roster in the process.
Flyers prospect Carter Hart earned himself a tough 18-save shutout, stopping exactly half as many pucks as his opponent (but getting the win anyway). Life just isn’t fair, as Emil Gransoe is figuring out.
Anyways, let’s get to the meat of things, since we have a nice avalanche of goals to sift through:

FIRST PERIOD

Goals, goals, goals. You ready for some goals?
Canada opened things up just under four minutes into the game, when Robert Thomas would take advantage of some sloppy post play by Gransoe to tally the first of the night:
Denmark would put up their best fight of the evening from there on out, holding Canada scoreless for almost 14 minutes before allowing goal number two.
Tampa Bay Lightning 2017 first-rounder Brett Howden would score his first of the night at 17:21, though, when Gransoe got caught outside the blue paint:
Sam Steel would wrap up the period with a last-minute goal at 19:40, potting a nice gritty goal when Gransoe found himself flat on the ice trying to stop an initial shot from Kale Clague:

SECOND PERIOD

So before we begin, we need to chat.
If you’re a hockey fan and you do the wave, you’re wrong and bad:
This was the only period that Canada didn’t score three goals, and they coincidentally didn’t score again in the period after this atrocity.
Coincidence? Probably not.
Anyways, Canada added to their 3-0 lead from the first with a goal from Colorado fourth-overall pick Cale Makar, who picked up his second power-play tally in two games:
When UMass came through Arizona, I got to talk to Makar, who scares me a little bit because I got the impression that the best from him is still yet to come. Since the Avalanche aren’t allowed to be good, this is concerning on a number of levels.
Anyways, his goal was followed up a little under two minutes later, when Brett Howden managed to tip in a shot from the point by Cal Foote for his second of the night:
As we know, they didn’t score after that for the rest of the period because of the wave.
Which brings us to the third and final frame:

THIRD PERIOD

I, frankly, find this a little unfair.
By the third period, the Danish had all but given up; Canada managed to add three additional goals to their arsenal on 19 shots, their highest total of the three periods despite heading into the final frame already up 5-0.
The first goal came less than four minutes into the period, when Alex Formenton (OTT) managed to get in front of the Danish defender for a short breakaway goal:
They’d follow that up with an unassisted tally by Devils prospect Mikey McLeod, who seems to be pretty good at hockey.
Finally, with seven-and-a-half minutes left in the third, Canada capitalized on an interference penalty by Magnus Molge, with McLeod sending the puck across the ice to Cal Foote (whose shot was tipped in by Drake Batherson):
And that’s all she wrote, boys.

NOTES:

  • We didn’t see any scoring from Canucks prospect Jonah Gadjovich today, which was shocking given that pretty much everyone on Team Canada walked away with at least one point. He was one of just five players not to at least record an assist, although not for lack of trying. With three shots on goal, he did his part as much as anyone to try and ruin Gransoe’s night; it just didn’t work out in his favor tonight. With three points in four games – and with almost 14 minutes of ice time on Saturday alone – it’s clear he’s doing just fine.
  • Dante Fabbro only managed to get 3:34 of ice time on the night, and it all came in the first period. No official word yet on if he was injured or just benched, but he had been battling a foot injury leading up to tournament play, so it’s certainly possible Ducharme just wanted to rest him to ensure he doesn’t aggravate anything. It certainly didn’t hurt Canada to hold him out.
  • It still doesn’t make a ton of sense that Avs prospect Cale Makar isn’t getting more ice time. He picked up his second power-play goal in two games on Saturday, showing he’s clearly capable of producing despite the limited minutes he’s getting. With just 15:48 of ice time on Saturday, only Fabbro and Victor Mete – who logged 7:39 of ice time himself and didn’t get a shift in the third – played less on the blue line. Eventually, you have to think that he’ll get more time from Ducharme.