Day 2 of the 2026 IIHF World Championship in Zurich, Switzerland, saw the remainder of the tournament field open its schedule, while two Vancouver Canucks representatives returned to action for their second games.

After all four Canucks skated on opening day, Saturday’s slate featured Aatu Räty with Finland and Filip Hronek with Czechia.

After opening the tournament with a win over Germany, Finland returned to the ice Saturday morning to face Hungary. As expected, the matchup proved fairly one-sided.

Finland controlled play from the outset, opening the scoring just 46 seconds into the game before rolling to a 4-1 victory while outshooting Hungary 32-10.

Aatu Räty once again centred Finland’s third line, this time skating between Eemil Erholtz and Janne Kuokkanen.

After scoring in Finland’s opening game, Räty collected his first assist of the tournament midway through the second period. Working the puck from the corner, the Canucks forward cycled it up high to Kuokkanen at the blue line, where the winger stepped in and snapped home his first goal of the event.

Räty finished the game with an assist, a plus-1 rating, and 11:54 of ice time.

With the victory, Finland now sits atop Group A as one of just two teams with two games completed. The Finns will now enjoy two days off before a highly anticipated matchup against Max Sasson and Team USA on Monday morning.

Saturday also delivered the tournament’s first major upset — and it involved a Vancouver Canucks defenceman.

Filip Hronek and Czechia entered the game as heavy favourites against Slovenia after opening the tournament with a convincing win over Denmark. Hronek once again served as an assistant captain while skating on the team’s top defensive pairing. And once again, he led all Czech skaters in ice time.

But despite controlling much of the play, Czechia struggled to put Slovenia away. The Slovenians opened the scoring midway through the first period before Czechia answered with back-to-back goals to carry a 2-1 lead into the third. Slovenia eventually found the equalizer in the final frame to force overtime, where Marcel Mahkovec ended the game just over a minute into the extra session after bursting up the ice on a clean breakaway.

Hronek was held off the scoresheet for a second consecutive game despite firing a game-high five shots on goal while skating 24:38 in the overtime loss.

Czechia will also receive a two-day break before taking on Linus Karlsson and Team Sweden.

Day 3 of the tournament will feature Max Sasson and Team USA taking on Great Britain, while Linus Karlsson and Sweden face Denmark later in the day.