Canada Dominates Belarus in 6-0 Victory

Canada's run at the 2017 World Hockey Championships will remain perfect after a 6-0 win over Belarus on Monday.

Like expected, Canada scored the first goal of the game. The team's fourth line has acted more as a top line in this tournament, creating many of the dangerous scoring chances. At 5:08, Toronto Maple Leafs star Mitch Marner sent a pass out to Brayden Point at the high slot. The Tampa Bay Lightning forward, who had a strong 2015 World Junior Hockey Championship for Canada, took a quick snap shot that beat Mikhail Karnaukhov for the 1-0 goal early on in the game.

Canada wasn't dominating the offense by any means in the first half of the game, but Canada still was able to take the 2-0 lead. Playing on the power play, Marner fed Nathan Mackinnon, who scored a hat-trick against Slovenia on Sunday, at the opposite high-slot than where Point scored from. But in a similar fashion, the Avalanche forward took a quick wrist shot that Karnaukhov wasn't close to stopping, giving the Canadians the 2-0 advantage.

Was Mackinnon done? Of course not. At 35:21, Jeff Skinner's shot on net was stopped before it could cross the goal line. Mackinnon, of course, was in a perfect spot to poke the puck over the goal line, giving Canada the 3-0 lead.

Canada would score a pair by the halfway point of the third to make it 5-0. At 47:01, Mackinnon got his third point of the night after he made a tremendous pass out to Jeff Skinner in front, who was all alone. Skinner easily knocked the goal in, giving Canada the 4-0 lead.

Then, three minutes later, Skinner set up for Claude Giroux. It wasn't on purpose, however, as Skinner's shot was stopped by Karnaukhov. The puck went to the right of the net where Giroux was standing, with the Philadelhpia Flyers captain hitting in the rebound to make it 5-0. Point would score his second of the game with six minutes left and Calvin Pickard would stop all 12 shots sent his way as Canada would hold on for the 6-0 victory.

Canada will get two days to rest up before meeting up with the hosts from France on Thursday, a 20:15 local start time. Belarus will get to sleep in on Tuesday before meeting up with Switzerland on Wednesday, a game the team will really need to contend in.

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