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U.S. Downs Canada, 5-1, In Men's Worlds Action

By USA Hockey, 05/23/21, 1:15PM EDT

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Team USA to Face Kazakhstan Tuesday at 9:15 am ET

RIGA, Latvia – The U.S. Men’s National Team used two goals from Trevor Moore (Thousand Oaks, Calif) and 26 saves from Jake Oettinger (Lakeville, Minn.) on the way to a 5-1 victory over Canada here tonight in preliminary round play at the 2021 IIHF Men’s World Championship.

“We’ve talked about coming together as a brotherhood and being hard to play against and our guys got rewarded for that here tonight," said Jack Capuano, head coach of the 2021 U.S. Men's National Team. "Offensively, I liked the way our guys paid attention to detail and now it’s a matter of continuing that as we move forward here.” 

Team USA had a 1-0 lead after the opening period. The goal came when Canada netminder Darcy Kuemper was playing the puck behind his net and Conor Garland (Scituate, Mass.) knocked the puck off his stick to the front of the net where Jason Robertson (Northville, Mich.) put it into an empty cage at 7:42. U.S. starting netminder Anthony Stolarz (Edison, N.J.) was injured five minutes into the period and exited after making two saves. Jake Oettinger (Lakeville, Minn.) made nine saves in a relief role in the period.

The U.S. scored three times in the middle frame to extend its advantage to 4-0 after 40 minutes. Team USA doubled its lead 1:19 into the period when defenseman Adam Clendening (Niagara Falls, N.Y.) fired one home through traffic from the left point. Matt Hellickson (Rogers, Minn.) drew the lone assist on the play. Just more than two minutes later, the U.S. added to its lead on the power play. Trevor Moore (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) got credit for the goal from the slot after Robertson’s pass went off his stick and then skate past Kuemper. Moore scored again with 1:40 left in the period from the side of the right circle off a feed from Garland.

Canada got on the board at 11:35 of the third when Maxime Comtois put one over the shoulder of Oettinger from point blank range.  Moore had a couple solid backhand chances in his bid for a hat trick, but could not convert. Matt Tennyson’s (Pleasanton, Calif.) goal from just above the  top of the left circle at 17:06 accounted for the 5-1 final.

Oettinger picked up the win in the U.S. net with 26 saves, while Kuemper finished with 13 stops in the first two periods and Adin Hill made five saves in the third.

The U.S., now 1-0-0-1 (W-OTW-OTL-L) in the world championship, returns to action Tuesday (May 25) to battle Kazakhstan in its third of seven preliminary round games. Opening faceoff is set for 9:15 a.m. ET and the game can be seen live on NHL Network.

NOTES: Trevor Moore was named the U.S. Player of the Game … Team USA won 34-of-54 faceoffs in the contest. Moore led the way with wins in 12 of his 14 draws … The four goal margin of victory was the largest ever for Team USA in a win against Canada in the world championship and the five goals scored equaled its largest output ever against the Canadians … Canada outshot the U.S., 29-23 … The U.S. was 1-3 on the power play, while Canada was 0-2 … Justin Abdelkader (Muskegon, Mich.) is serving as captain of Team USA, while Colin Blackwell (North Andover, Mass.) and Matt Roy (Detroit, Mich.) are the squad’s alternate captains.

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