Group A of the 2025 IIHF World Championship in Stockholm is interesting. It’s dominated by Canada and Sweden and, at this point, Slovenia looks like the team that will be relegated. Finland will probably advance but doesn’t look like a lock, and the other three teams – Latvia, Austria, Slovakia and France – are all fighting for one, maybe two spots. That makes Wednesday’s game between Slovakia and France a big one.

The French are probably the biggest longshot of that group and, unfortunately, the must-win game against Slovakia starts less than 18 hours after they left the ice following a 5-0 loss to Canada. Pierre-Édouard Bellemare, the team’s 40-year-old captain who’s playing in his 12th World Championship, spoke about the Canada game and looked ahead.

“After a terrible first period, we pulled together and played a good second period,” said Bellemare, according to Šport.sk. “That’s a positive thing about today. We started playing well defensively and had some counterattacks. Unfortunately, we didn’t convert them. If we had scored in the second period, I’m not saying we would have won, but at least it would have been closer and it would have also started the team.

“And also, it’s Team Canada, probably the best team in the world, and we’re France. We’re a long way from that.”

France opened with a 4-1 loss to Latvia, which was followed by a heartbreaking 4-3 overtime loss to Finland – a game that the French led 3-1 with two minutes remaining.

Eeli Tolvanen's Late Surge Rescues Snake-Bitten Finns Last year, <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/international/latest-news/olli-maatta-mikael-granlund-react-to-nervous-win-over-denmark">Finland barely made the IIHF World Championship quarterfinals</a> and the team’s first two games this year have not been especially reassuring to the team’s fans. Playing against Austria and France, teams that Finnish team in past years might have beaten easily, the Finns have managed wins of 2-1 and 4-3 in overtime.

At this point, the French know that they absolutely have to take the maximum number of points against Slovakia, Austria and Slovenia to have any chance, and therefore the question was posed to Bellemare whether or not he and his teammates saved anything in the tank against Canada, knowing they had such a quick turnaround.

“We didn’t take it that way,” he replied. “I have nothing against Slovakia, but we play Slovakia tomorrow. We didn’t come here to look at it like, okay, we’re playing an important game tomorrow, so we’re not going to put that much effort into it today.

“We try to play every game to the fullest. It would be disrespectful to hockey if we approached it in a way that we would go all out and just enjoy this game. That’s not how we work in France.”

Under normal circumstances, France would be considered a big underdog against Slovakia, but that’s not necessarily the case here. The Slovaks were beaten as badly by Sweden (5-0) as France was by Canada, beat Slovenia 3-1 and lost in a controversial shootout to Austria.

Austria-Slovakia Shootout Ends in Controversy Austria and Slovakia were tied 2-2 after 65 minutes of hockey, meaning their IIHF World Championship Group A game had to be decided in a shootout.

While France only one-full-time NHLer on their roster – Alexandre Texier of the St. Louis Blues – that’s one more than Slovakia has. And of course, Bellemare has 700 games of NHL experience himself with the Philadelphia Flyers, Vegas Golden Knights, Colorado Avalanche, Tampa Bay Lightning and Seattle Kraken.

But either way, it’s almost at the point where the loser of this game can kiss their quarterfinal hopes good-bye.

“It’ll be a tough game – I don’t expect anything easy,” said Bellemare. “It was tough against Canada, Latvia, Finland and it will be tough against Slovakia. Our team won’t come to the championship and be like, ‘Oh, we’ll get points in this game.’ That's not how it works. I expect a tough game. They beat us in Slovakia in the pre-tournament, so we have to play a good game.”

It's Official: Pierre-Édouard Bellemare Signs In Ajoie French left winger Pierre-Édouard Bellemare has signed to play with HC Ajoie for the remainder of the current season, <a href="https://www.hc-ajoie.ch/fr/Le-Club/Actualites/Greg-Ireland-et-Pierre-Edouard-Bellemare-au-HC-Ajoie.html">the National League club announced</a> on Thursday.