Mike McEwen remains perfect at the Kioti National after taking an 8-1 victory over Winnipeg's Reid Carruthers on Friday in St. John's.

McEwen, who's also from Winnipeg, scored three in the first end and never trailed.

He went 4-0 across round-robin play to finish as the No. 1 seed heading into Saturday's quarterfinals, where he'll face the winner of a tiebreaker between Switzerland's Marco Hoesli (2-2) and Marc Muskatewitz (2-2) of Germany.

Quarterfinal action will also see Calgary's Brad Jacobs (4-0) take on hometown hero Brad Gushue (2-2) while Scotland's Ross Whyte (3-1) battles Joel Retornaz (2-2) of Italy and Bruce Mouat (3-1) of Scotland goes up against American John Shuster (3-1).

The women's playoffs will begin with tiebreakers between Halifax's Christina Black (2-2) and South Korea's Eun-ji Gim, and Silvana Tirinzoni (2-2) of Italy and Seung-youn Ha of South Korea (2-2).

Later in the day, top seed Anna Hasselborg (4-0) of Sweden will go up against the winner of one tiebreak while No. 2 seed Eun-jung Kim of South Korea takes on the other victor.