5 Surprising Canada Stats From Exciting Victory

Here are some interesting stats from Team Canada's win over Team Sweden.

EDMONTON -- While the kids are away the big boys will play. 

And play, they did.

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Connor McDavid and Team Canada defeated Mattias Ekholm and Team Sweden, 4-3 in overtime. While the final score tells one story, there are more interesting things to glean from a handful of other stats.

Here are the most interesting of the bunch.

Everyone expects offense at a best-on-best tournament. That makes the defensive aspects more impressive. 

Team Canada blocked 25 shots on Wednesday night's opener. This is very high, even for an NHL game. This shows the dedication to defense that head coach Jon Cooper is preaching to his squad.

Sweden clawed their way back from an early hole, and Ekholm played a role in that. He played the third-most minutes of all Sweden defenders with 19:30.

Viktor Arvidsson was utilized in a depth role and finished the game with 10:08 minutes.

A further testament to the defensive knack that both teams displayed was the shot clock. The shots were 28 to 26 in favor of Canada.

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Brandon Hagel led both teams in hits. He recorded five hits in the game, while the next highest was Adrian Kempe with four. That is a high proportion of hits thrown by one player. Especially because, there were only 41 total hits.

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McDavid was flying on Wednesday night. He led all Team Canada forwards in ice time with 21:26. He finished the game with one assist, one shot, and 86 percent in the faceoff dot.

Canada plays again on Saturday against Team USA.

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