Team Canada kicks off 2024 World Juniors with 5-2 win over Finland

Team Canada kicking off their 2024 World Juniors campaign today with a big win over Finland T pivots away again from kasaki plays it back for lamber with a shot rebound score they’ve got through coo and Canada open with to scoring love that Nate Danielson oward and mlin celebrini leading the way for

Canada on route to a 52 win GOC Mattis rouso stopping 23 of 25 shots he faced Canada plays Lafia next and all that action tomorrow at 1:30 you can see it 1:30 eastern time that is on TSN and joining me now is Stephen Ellis the associate editor of the daily

Faceoff Stephen thanks for joining us I know you’re a busy busy man right now Lots going on are are you watching a game out of the corner of your eye right now USA versus lvia is right there so yeah I am so let’s talk we could talk

About that Norway oh Norway we could talk about that one but let’s talk about Canada against Finland uh how do you think did they look good today yeah for the fins are a good team so going up against that is a good competition to to kind of see where canidate is uh we

Looked at how they played against the Americans and had kind of a start stop finish wasn’t looking so good I think this felt like compared to the pre-tournament games we saw them play against Switzerland Denmark this felt like the most complete game for Canada great goal tending great depth you know

There’s no Superstar on this team it’s kind of a a a play by committee here all four lines are rolling and I thought that was as good of a first game as we could expect against an opponent like that all right well that’s that’s good to hear and mlin celebrini uh scoring

And probably I’m hope I’m pronouncing celebrini right but that’s one of the greatest names in sports right now too but he’s one of the players to watch yeah celebrini he’s the top prospect for 2024 you know he’s not Connor Bard level but he’s still one of the best prospects

We’ve seen come out of the world junior program in a long time so someone like him playing a big role is expected he did play on the fourth line today as they’re trying to ease him into here after a Soo pre- tournament but uh the way he played today scoring a goal that

Actually ended up becoming the game winner that’s all you can expect from a guy like him now with that pressure do do the players respond to that when there you know everybody talks about you know they’re number one that that player looks like he’s going to be drafted

Number one do they rise to the occasion or to some struggle when you look at Conor Bard last year and had one of the best performances we’ve ever seen in tournament history and I think you know with with the way that celebrini already started just shows like a guy that is

Playing well above his his age level he’s 17 years old he plays against college players so he knows that tough competition but playing in a tournament like this against the best Junior players in the world a lot of these guys play pro hockey it’s a big deal but uh I

Think you know it’s always when you’re playing for Team Canada it’s difficult for everybody and when you’re the guy that everyone’s looking at it’s of course the nerves are there but I thought he looked pretty good all right good to hear laia’s up next for Canada

What can we expect with that laia is a team that’s going to be a bit tired like Canada they’re playing Sweden later today but if any laian team can kind of push through and give up a good fight that we’ve seen the last couple years

This is a team that’s got depth they got some goal tending options they got some big defensemen it’s just you know Canada just has to keep rolling they looked at how good they played against uh the fins today they just need to keep replicating that because it’s not going to get

Easier as a tournament goes on and you don’t want to look ahead but uh who’s the team uh in the in the round robin at Le who’s the team for uh Team Canada well you know Canada it’s they got Sweden to still play that’s going to

Be a difficult one you know when you look at Sweden and the United States the two teams everyone’s talking about as the favorites but Canada’s up there and that game against Sweden a couple days ago will be huge that will probably decide who gets first in the group so

It’s a pretty important game all right we’ll be looking for that Stephen thank you very much for joining us today and get back to theame thank you so much stepen ell associate editor the of daily face off

Canada defeats Finland 5-2 in Canada’s opening game of the 2024 World Juniors tournament. Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis provides his insight.

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