Team Canada wraps up the group phase with a crushing 10-2 win over France, setting itself up for their quarterfinal outing on Wednesday.
MILAN - For an outsider, it seemed like Canada's final round-robin game against France would be an awkward encounter. Because goal differential counts at the Olympics, Canada was incentivized to absolutely wreck a French team that had a fraction of the elite skill that the hockey juggernaut did. But players from both squads nixed that notion after Canada's 10-2 romp.
"No, we didn't talk about that," said Canadian defenseman Devon Toews, who scored in the first period. "We get three games here as a new group to figure out what the best version of ourselves are as a team, so that's what we're focused on: getting better every game. We did a good job tonight. We defended hard, we closed quickly, and we stayed within our structure for the most part. We played on our toes more than in the other games, which is a good sign for us."
Canada came out flying, overwhelming France on many of the early shifts, but the first goal didn't come until almost midway through the frame when Tom Wilson bodied a French defender behind the net to gain puck possession. Seconds later, Wilson popped in a rebound to get the night going.
A surprise goal by France's Floran Douay just 13 seconds later made things interesting, but Toews answered back less than a minute later. Once Mark Stone scored shorthanded with four seconds left in the period, the writing was on the wall.
Mitch Marner and Mark Stone (David W Cerny/Reuters via Imagn Images)"You're just trying to play the right way," Stone said. "Obviously, we had the puck a lot, but you try to play a game where you feel like you can progress into the quarterfinal, and I felt we did a good job of that. There were times we got stuck around the outside, but once we got back to the interior of the ice and got pucks in and around the net, we started making plays."
Some of those players were beguiling. Macklin Celebrini's give-and-go with Connor McDavid to open up the third period, for example. Or Celebrini's penalty-shot goal - talk about a spotlight for the phenom teen - in the second.
Even broken plays were going in. Sidney Crosby, now Canada's all-time Olympic scorer (in tournaments with NHL players), had an attempted pass go off a French player and into the corner of the net as netminder Julian Junca was moving into what he thought was the right position to make a save.
Junca chatted with Crosby after the game and playfully teased the Canadian captain about the play.
"I told him the goal he scored wasn't too nice," Junca said with a smile. "He said, 'Yeah, bad luck (for Junca).' But it's so nice to play against (Canada) and talk with them and see how nice they are."
As for the lopsided score, Junca took no offense. He was mercifully pulled after two periods in favor of Antoine Keller, who fared no better, but would have been insulted if Canada had gone easy on France.
"I know that those guys, if they respected us, the score would be like that, so I'm pretty happy that they respect us," he said. "Those guys played from the first second to the last. It's a privilege to play against them and try to match them or give them a tough time. That was my goal. I tried to battle those 40 minutes, and after I was a little more tired and I had some bad luck - and I didn't like that one goal - but there wasn't much I could do."
But there was some venom in the game. Tom Wilson answered the question 'Will there be any fights at the Olympics?' by taking on 6-foot-5 Pierre Crinon, who had elbowed Nathan MacKinnon earlier in the contest.
It wasn't much of a tilt as Crinon pulled Wilson to the ice before any real punches could be thrown, but Wilson's teammates appreciated the effort.
"We're a team in here," Toews said. "We're gelling fast, and we're having a lot of fun together. Anytime you have a teammate stepping up for another one, it's awesome."
And because Wilson had already contributed to the scoresheet, he ended up with a Gordie Howe hat trick on the night.
According to Elliotte Friedman, there will be no supplementary discipline for the scrap, so whichever team plays Canada in the quarterfinal will indeed have to deal with Wilson. Not to mention all his other all-star teammates.
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