Canadian men post another one-sided victory at hockey worlds to stay unbeaten
Jets centre Pierre-Luc Dubois paces attack with pair of goals against Slovakia
Pierre-Luc Dubois scored twice as Canada remained undefeated at the world hockey championship with a 5-1 win over Slovakia on Monday.
Dubois scored the winning goal at 26:11 of the second period and added his second of the game less than 12 minutes later.
The Winnipeg Jets centre has four goals and an assist for defending champion Canada, which leads Group A with nine points from three regulation wins.
Team Canada coach Claude Julien said the game was closer than the lopsided scored indicated.
"They have been our toughest test so far, and you could see that in the way they took it to us, especially in the first period," he said. "They played aggressive and created a lot of strong scoring chances, but we were able to regroup and find ways to generate quality scoring chances of our own."
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Dubois' Jets teammate Adam Lowry and Morgan Geekie of the Seattle Kraken each had a goal and an assist for Canada, and Cole Sillinger, coming off a solid rookie season with the Columbus Blue Jackets, also scored. Dylan Cozens of the Buffalo Sabres and Josh Anderson of the Montreal Canadiens each chipped in two assists.
"It was a great feeling. I was just trying to help the team extend our lead, and I felt like we played a lot better as the game went on. It was great that we were able to come out after a close first period and finish the game the way we did," Geekie said. "Moving forward we need to keep doing what we are doing. We have a few days off to rest and recover, watch video and get ready for our game on Thursday."
Samuel Takac scored for Slovakia (1-2, three points), the bronze medallist at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Logan Thompson stopped 34 shots for Canada, while Adam Huska made 39 saves for Slovakia.
The Canadians are off until Thursday, when they take on Kazakhstan.
