The Canadians beat France and entered the quarter-finals as holders!

Canada thus concluded the first part of the competition with three victories and a 20-3 goal difference, winning direct placement in the quarterfinals as the best-placed national team.

After defeating the Czech Republic 5-0 and Switzerland 5-1 in the first two rounds, the Canadians “hunted” for the most convincing victory against the French in order to win the position of first seed in the quarterfinals.

The Canadians won convincingly 10-2, pushing the USA into an almost impossible position. Namely, in the last round, the Americans had to beat Germany by at least 11 goals in order to take over “number one”. In the end, they won with an insufficient 5-1.

The Canadian – French match was marked by Sidney Crosby, who scored a goal and two assists, reaching 16 points in the history of Olympic tournaments, surpassing the record of Jarome Iginla, who was the best Canadian scorer at the Winter Olympic Games among NHL players with 14 points.

Interestingly, as many as nine Canadian games were among the scorers, Macklin Celebrini scored two goals, and Tom Wilson, Devon Toews, Mark Stone, Cale Makar, Connor McDavid, Bo Horvat and Brandon Hagel also scored among the scorers, while Floran Douay and Sacha Treille scored for France.

In the second match from this group, Switzerland beat the Czech Republic 4-3 after extra time, and the deciding goal was scored by Dean Kukan in the second minute of “overtime”. Canada won the first place in the group with a maximum of nine points, Switzerland is second with five points, the Čes have čfour, and the French are at zero.

In Group C, the United States beat Germany 5-1. Scorers for USA were Auston Matthews (2), Zach Werenski, Brock Faber and Tage Thompson, while Tim Stutzle scored on the opposite side.

In the second match, Denmark beat Latvia 4-2, registering their first victory. The Americans won the group with a maximum of nine points.

Canada, the USA, Slovakia and Finland won direct qualification to the quarterfinals, while in the play-off the Czech Republic played Denmark, Sweden played Latvia, Germany played France, and Italy played Switzerland.