HALIFAX -- Nothing less than perfection will do now.
If Canada is to leave the IIHF World Hockey Championship with another gold medal, it's going to do so with a perfect 9-0 record for the second straight year.
Team Canada’s Jonathan Toews (left) collides with Team Finland’s Tuomo Ruutu during the first period Monday.
Shane Doan and Dany Heatley each scored twice Monday as the Canadians defeated Finland 6-3 in a matchup of unbeaten teams. It will take three more wins in a row for O Canada to be played after the gold-medal game this weekend in Quebec City.
"You never want to back your way in," said Doan. "I think it's a big thing to go the way that we've done it. We want to keep going."
The Canadian team seems to be gaining confidence with each passing game.
The players looked extremely comfortable and relaxed from the drop of the puck against Finland. Their opponents sensed that and knew that it meant they would need some perfection of their own.
"First of all, they are a better team," said Finnish forward Teemu Selanne. "I think they had better energy and that combination is tough to beat. They really took advantage of their scoring chances and we made too many mistakes and it cost us goals. We know against Canada we can't do those things.
"There are a lot of good things in our game, too, but not good enough to beat a team like Canada. You have to play an almost perfect game to beat them and we didn't get that tonight."
Ryan Getzlaf and Patrick Sharp also scored while Pascal Leclaire made 24 saves in goal for Canada, which has now won 15 straight world championship games dating back to last year.
This win was particularly important because it gave them a weaker opponent in Wednesday's quarter-final. The Canadians will face Norway, which advanced after Latvia was beaten 5-3 by Germany on Monday night.
Antti Pihlström scored twice while Tuomo Ruutu had the other for the Finns, who will face the speedy Americans in the quarter-finals.
The U.S. outplayed Canada when the teams faced each other earlier in the event so the home side was happy to avoid them.
"We know how good the Americans are," said Doan. "We didn't want to have to play them again. In a sudden-death game anything can happen."
Canada's last two games have been the best two of the tournament.
"We wanted to play well through our first six (games) and get better every night," said Heatley. "I think we've done a pretty good job of that. Now we've got do-or-die here the next couple days."
There's no one better than Heatley.
He has a tournament-leading nine goals so far and is only two behind the modern-day record Eric Lindros set in 1993. That's well within reach if Canada ends up playing three more games.
-- The Canadian Press
PREVIOUS
