The Associated Press
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia—Canada won its third-straight game at the hockey world championship today, routing Belarus 8-0 with seven different players scoring.
Canada leads Group ‘B’ with nine points and has scored 20 goals in its three games, including a 5-1 win over the United States in its opener on Friday.
With patriotic Soviet songs playing in the arena to mark the anniversary of beating the Nazis in World War II, Canada got two goals from Ryan O’Reilly, one of them while short-handed.
“It was a competitive game, especially early on,” noted Team Canada coach Bill Peters.
“That short-handed goal was a bit of a game-changer,” he said.
“They were very competitive and in the end, I think our depth is what wore them down.”
Cam Talbot faced only 13 shots for Canada’s first shutout of the championship.
Canada was coming off an 7-1 win over Hungary yesterday.
In Group ‘A’ play in Moscow, host Russia beat Latvia 4-0 on two goals and two assists from Chicago Blackhawks’ forward Artemi Panarin, who bounced back after he was pulled from yesterday’s game against Kazakhstan following a hard collision into the boards.
Montreal Canadiens’ defenceman Alexei Yemelin faces a minimum one-game suspension after he was ejected for a knee on Miks Indrasis.
Russia is 2-1 after an opening 3-0 loss to the Czech Republic and then a tricky 6-4 win over Kazakhstan.
