Olympic champions Canada routed France 9-1 after two goals from Jeff Skinner on Sunday to advance to the second round of the ice hockey world championship.
Canada, who are 2-0 after a 4-1 victory over Belarus on Friday, face Switzerland in their last match in Group B today.
“We look like we got a team with hunger to score goals,” Canada coach Ken Hitchcock said. “We got better as the game went on.”
Germany and Switzerland recorded their second victories to advance, while Russia collected their first win.
Canada’s Marc-Andre Gragnani opened the scoring 1 minute, 2 seconds into the match from a power play on a rebound. Jason Spezza doubled the lead at 6 minutes, 35 seconds and Jeff Skinner finished the first-period rout at the 12 minute, 2 second mark.
France fought back and replied through Pierre Edouard Bellemare, who scored midway through the second period on a power play, before Chris Stewart and Alex Pietrangelo netted within 43 seconds for Canada to hold a 5-1 lead.
Bret Burns, captain Rick Nash, Skinner and Travis Zajac finished the rout with third-period goals.
Russia rebounded from Friday’s opening-day loss to Germany by beating Slovenia 6-4 in Bratislava in a hard-fought win.
Vitali Atyushov, Maxim Afinogenov, Dmitri Kulikov and Yevgeni Artyukhin scored for Russia to lead 4-2, but Slovenia equalized through goals by Bostjan Golicic and Rok Pajic with 8 minutes, 32 seconds left in the final period.
Alexander Radulov scored at 56:19 seconds left and Sergei Zinoviev then added the sixth goal.
Marcel Muller and Felix Schutz both had a goal and assist to lead Germany 4-3 over host Slovakia to the next round.
After a scoreless opening period, Muller, John Tripp and Frank Hordler scored a goal each in the second to silence the home crowd at Bratislava’s Orange Arena.
Schutz added the fourth for Germany in the third period, before Slovakia hit back through goals by Ladislav Nagy and captain Pavol Demitra.
After upsetting Russia 2-0 on Friday, Germany have six points from two games in Group A. Slovakia are on three and face Russia in their final group-stage game.
In Kosice, Ryan Gardner scored twice to help Switzerland to a 4-1 win over Belarus and a berth into the second round.
Belarus will fight with France for the third spot from Group B in the next round.
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