Canada Gets First Scare in Final pre-tournament World Junior Game
The Russians are coming, and the Canadians couldn’t be happier to finally get the 2017 world junior championship started.
Wouldn’t you know it, but Canada bumped up against some actual adversity on Friday night at the Air Canada Centre.
After cruising through a pair of exhibition games earlier in the week, Canada needed overtime to beat Switzerland 4-3 in its final world junior tuneup. The winning goal was scored by Carolina Hurricanes prospect Nicolas Roy, who banged the puck into the net off the end boards at 3:18.
Canada begins the tournament on Monday night at the ACC against Russia, one of its major rivals, along with the United States.
Canada, which outshot Switzerland 32-14, built a 3-0 lead by the seven-minute mark of the first period and made it appear it was going to post another easy win after beating Finland and the Czech Republic by similar 5-0 scores.
That’s not what unfolded in front of a sparse crowd of 9,004 at the ACC.
