MILAN — Macklin Celebrini scored Canada’s first goal in the return of the NHL to the Olympics and Jordan Binnington stopped all 26 shots he faced in a 5-0 defeat of Czechia on Thursday that showed the tournament favorite is already a well-oiled machine.
Celebrini, his country’s youngest player at 19, deflected a shot by Cale Makar past Lukas Dostal with 5.7 seconds left in the first, putting an exclamation point on a terrific, back-and-forth period. After Mitch Marner’s saucer pass to Mark Stone for his goal and Bo Horvat’s on a breakaway later in the second, Czechia never stood a chance.
David Kampf’s rebound attempt.
At the other end of the ice, Dostal played well but was helpless to slow down much of the onslaught. There was nothing he could do on the Sidney Crosby to Connor McDavid to Nathan MacKinnon tic-tac-toe power-play goal in the third period.
The same trio combined for almost the same goal in opening game of the 4 Nations Face-Off a year ago. Canada won that Olympic appetizer by beating the U.S. – which opens Thursday night against Latvia – in overtime.
McDavid had three assists, including one on Nick Suzuki’s goal that made it 5-0.
Timo Meier scores twice as Switzerland shuts out France Adding NHL talent to a group that made a deep run in an international tournament last spring, Switzerland opened the Olympics with a statement victory against France.
Timo Meier of the New Jersey Devils scored twice in the third period, 39-year-old national team goaltender Leonardo Genoni stopped all 27 shots he faced and Switzerland shut out France 4-0 on Thursday. Damien Riat scored 55 seconds in, J.J. Moser of the Tampa Bay Lightning made it a two-goal lead three minutes in and there wasn’t much to worry about the rest of the way.
Nino Niederreiter said. «We’re going to try our best to poke the bear a little bit and see if we can go from there.»
