Today’s Canada vs Germany was the final game of Round Robin play the 2024 World Junior Championships. After Canada’s loss to Sweden, it’s a bit of a letdown for most Canadian fans BUT, it’s not a nothing game for the Germans. They could move from the basement of Group “A” to second place ahead of Canada, despite yesterday’s 6-2 loss to Latvia. Sweden has a lock on first place even though they lost yesterday in overtime to Finland. The USA secured first place in group “B” with a 10-2 win over Slovakia. CZECH took third place in “B” by defeating the Swiss in overtime. Norway goes the relegation round after going winless in 4 games.
Here we go again. 11 seconds in, a big hit by Conor Geekie was called. Guess what ? Yep a ref’s review turned in it to 5 and game for hitting the head. The Germans took advantage when Lutz put them ahead just 3 minutes later. During the major, guys like Macklin Celebrini and Carson Rehkopf got zero ice time. As soon as it was over Celebrini scored top shelf, glove side to tie things up. The rest of the period was all Canada. Brayden Jager put the Canadians out front with power play goal of his own. Whitby boy Matt Poitras was creamed face first into the boards late in to the period. The 3500 Canadian fans all yelled “5-5-5” to no avail. Two minutes only. Final SOG, Red Shirts 13, Germany 3.
A pretty ho-hum middle stanza got started with the Germans scoring on a PP goal from Roman Kechker at 1:26 to tie it at twos. From there the Canadians again completely dominated play. One problem, they wouldn’t shoot the puck and when they did they missed the net. Canada seemed to get the message in the back half, shooting more often and ending up with a 12-4 shot advantage. Commentator Mike Johnson was going crazy watching all of the misplayed attempts and over passing. SHOOOOT !
Owen Beck put the Canucks ahead 3-2 early. But, true to form the refs called for another German PP and they tied it 3-3 at the 12:30 mark. Their 3rd PPG of the game. The Germans only needed one point from this game to avoid having to play Norway in the one game relegation round. Canada was relentless on the attack. Jordan Dummais buried his first of the tournament on a Canadian PP. 17 year old and presumptive first overall pick Maklin Celebrini then scored on a break that had him shooting in his second of the game from practically the icing line. The kid’s amazing. 5-3 Canada. The Germans had really no choice but to pull their goalie with 3 minutes left. Leaf prospect Easton Cowan got the 6th and final goal when he first hit the post on an empty net shot from the blue line only to recover and score his first on nice cross crease feed. Final 6-3 Canada.
HOPPER NOTES: Germany caused an awful lot of havoc in front by screening Mathis Rouseau, especially on the PP…the red shirts were down to 11 forwards for the majority of the game after Matt Savoie was scratched due to injury and the early ejection of Geekie…final shots on goal were 35-20…Canada’s Player of the Game was Celebrini…nice to see a shot of the two Leaf prospects Minten and Cowan share a chuckle on the bench after Easton’s empty netter…here now are your Quarter Final match-ups set for Tuesday:
6 am Sloakia vs Finland 8 am Canada vs Czech
11 am USA vs Latvia 1:30 p Sweden vs Switzerland
Semi-final games are set for Thursday and the medal round finals will be played on Friday. CHEERS to all and HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE !!