The Canadian's World Junior Championship tune-up time came to a close on Saturday morning after a 2-1 shootout win over Sweden but there is no doubt the coaching staff will be working on discipline with their players as they prepare for the start of the tournament.
In total, Canada took eight minor penalties and one major penalty through regulation and the only goal they allowed came while they were short a man.
The Canadian coaching staff switched up their defensive pairings on Saturday and Flames prospect Tyler Wotherspoon moved up to play alongside Morgan Rielly. On Thursday, he was paired with Griffin Reinhart in a bottom-two role.
Wotherspoon was used heavily on the penalty kill, logging big minutes on Saturday morning due to the number of infractions assessed to the Canadians. He once again provided Canada with a steady presence on the backend, using his stick and size wisely against the Swedes.
Canada was short two forwards to start on Saturday and were down to 10 by the end of the game. Charles Hudon has been deemed unable to play in the tournament due to a back injury. Mark McNeill has been summoned by Canada and will join the team later today. Brett Ritchie sustained a minor injury in Thursday's game and was held out for precautionary reasons.
They lost Boone Jenner midway through the game after his late hit on Jesper Pettersson earned him a 5:00 charging call and a game misconduct. The Swedish camp relayed to TSN that the defenceman had suffered broken ribs from the hit.
Sweden opened the scoring in the first period, capitalizing on the power play. Sebastian Collberg was able to get the puck to Elias Lindholm at the front of the net and the centerman shoveled it towards the cage. Alexander Wennberg was able to bang in the rebound to make it 1-0 at 9:39.
2013 draft-eligible foward Jonathan Drouin evened things up in the second period with a goal that will be all over highlight reels this weekend. Ty Rattie sent the winger in on a breakaway as he stepped out of the penalty box and Drouin used a forehand-back-deke to beat Joel Lassinantti.
In the shootout, Jonathan Hubereau and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored for Canada while Mikael Vikstrand was the lone scorer for Sweden.
CANADA'S LINES, DEFENSIVE PAIRINGS & GOALTENDERS
FORWARDS
Jonathan Huberdeau - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Mark Scheifele
Jonathan Drouin - Ryan Strome - Ty Rattie
Philip Danault - Boone Jenner - JC Lipon
Anthony Camara - Nathan MacKinnon
DEFENCE
Scott Harrington - Dougie Hamilton
Morgan Rielly - Tyler Wotherspoon
Griffin Reinhart - Xavier Ouellet
Ryan Murphy
GOALTENDERS
Jordan Binnington
Malcom Subban
SWEDEN'S LINES, DEFENSIVE PAIRINGS & GOALTENDERS
FORWARDS
Rickard Rakell- William Karlsson - Filip Forsberg
Emil Molin - Elias Lindholm - Sebastian Collberg
Viktor Arvidsson - Victor Rask - Nick Sorensen
Jacob De La Rose - Jeremy Boyce Rotevall - Alexander Wennberg
Linus Froberg - Filip Sandberg
DEFENCE
Hampus Lindholm - Rasmus Bengtsson
Mikael Vikstrand - Tom Nilsson
Linus Arnesson - Emil Djuse
Christian Djoos - Jesper Pettersson
GOALTENDERS
Joel Lassinantti
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