World U17 Hockey Challenge Day 3 Recap

LAMBTON SHORES, Ontario – The Shores Recreation Centre was host to a sold out crowd Tuesday evening as two undefeated Group B teams, Canada Red and USA, met in a highly anticipated game. Playing for top spot in Group B, it both squads came out flying with some exciting end-to-end action right from the puck drop.

With Canada Red playing as underdogs against a well-established USA team, where most of its players participate together on the National Junior Team, the red and white appeared capable of skating with the talented Americans. Coming into their final round robin game, Canada Red had opened the scoring in each of its first two games and racked up an impressive seven first-period goals. Unfortunately, it was the Americans who struck first after London Knights prospect Max Jones unleashed a lethal shot, jumped on his own rebound and made good on his second shot attempt, beating Canadian goaltender Dylan Wells just 4:05 minutes into the frame. Not even three minutes later, tournament leading scorer Clayton Keller (six goals and nine points) added his first of three on the night as he wristed a shot under the crossbar.

Goals came quickly and often as the Canadians struggled to gain possession from the Americans. Spokane Chiefs forward Kailer Yamamoto extended the lead to 3-0 as he finished off a nice passing play with Everett Silvertips draftee Patrick Khodorenko as the game clock hit 12:21 in the first. Down 3-0 and the clock expiring on the first period, Max Jones added his second of the game with 78 seconds to play in the play.

USA led 4-0 after the first period.

It took the Americans only 104 seconds to break twine in the second period when Clayton Keller redirected a Nick Pastujov centering pass. With the Lambton Shores crowd growing restless as they began to see why the Americans were the favourites, Canada Red restored some hope when Kitchener Rangers sniper Adam Mascherin jumped on a rebound to make good on Canada’s powerplay attempt. Keegan Suthers would record his first goal and point of the tournament as he fooled Dylan Wells on a redirected shot to put USA up 6-1 heading into the second intermission.

As the puck dropped on the final period, Canada Red showed some better jump in their game and answered with back-to-back goals. William Bitten (Ottawa 67’s) finished off a nice pass from fellow Ottawa native Tye Felhaber (Saginaw Spirit) and defenseman Dante Fabbro (Penticton, BCHL) notched Canada’s second powerplay goal of the game on a 5-on-3 advantage to close the USA lead to 6-3. All wind was taken out of the Canadians sails when Clayton Keller completed the hat trick with a four point night to send the Americans to a 7-3 victory.

Max Jones (USA) and William Bitten (CANADA RED) were named the respective Players of the Game.
Americans Clayton Keller (six goals, nine points), Nick Pastujov (three goals, seven points) and Max Jones (four goals, six points) sit 1-2-3 in tournament scoring after round robin play.

SWEDEN 7 – SLOVAKIA 0

Earlier in the day, Lambton Shores fans witnessed Sweden dominated the Slovakians in a 7-0 romping. Alexander Nylander scored once and added two assists leading Sweden to its first tournament win. Captain William Fällstrom broke twine twice extending his team lead in goals to three on the tournament. With the Swedes leading 7-0 on goals from Linus Weissbach, Fällstrom (2), Tim Wahlgren, Alexander Nylander, Alexander Andersson and Pontus Karlsson midway through the game, the Slovaks looked deflated in this low-intensity affair. Only two penalties were called in the entire game and Sweden skated to an easy third place finish in Group B play. Scoring only one goal and allowing a tournament-high 20 goals against was the Achilles heel for Team Slovakia, who ended their round robin schedule winless and last in Group B play.

Looking Ahead…

Wednesday marks a day off for tournament action but play resumes on Thursday when quarterfinal games take place in both Sarnia and Lambton Shores locations.

With the Americans (3-0-0-0) tenth straight U17 win, USA clinched top spot in Group B play and booked their ticket to a quarterfinal match against Canada Black, who finished 4th in Group A (Thursday, November 6th @ 3 p.m, Lambton Shores).

The loss to the Americans put Canada Red (2-1-0-0) into second place in Group B and they will face off against the Group A’s 3rd place Russians (1-1-0-1) on Thursday, November 6th @ 7 p.m ET in Lambton Shores.

Despite falling to Canada Black (1-1-0-1) 4-3 on Tuesday evening at the Sarnia Arena, Finland secured a first place finish in Group A play after their opening night 5-1 win over Canada White proved to be an important tie-breaker. Canada White (1-1-1-0) skated to a 4-2 win over Russia (1-1-0-1) at the RBC Centre Tuesday evening and finished second in Group A.

Finland (Group A -1st) will host Slovakia (Group B – 4th) at the RBC Centre in a 3p.m matchup Thursday.

Canada White (Group A – 2nd) will headline the evening game (RBC, 7 p.m. as they will face off against a hungry Swedish team (Group B – 3rd).

Quarterfinal games will be streamed online by Fast Hockey on the Hockey Canada website. TSN will broadcast Saturday’s medal rounds.

Be sure to follow Brendan Ross on Twitter (@RossyYoungblood) as he continues to cover #WU172014 action for CKSN