Team Canada needs 1 win for World Cup

Associated Press

TORONTO

Canada was not at its best. And it was still good enough.

Brad Marchand and Steven Stamkos scored in the first period and the Canadians cruised to a 3-1 win over Team Europe in Game 1 of the World Cup of Hockey finals on Tuesday night.

“You like things to be perfect every night, but it’s just not real,” Canada coach Mike Babcock said.

Game 2 of the best-of-three series is Thursday night.

“We have a feeling in there that this is far from over,” said forward Frans Nielsen, who is from Denmark. “We know we can go out there and take a game, take the next one and make this a one-game series.”

Patrice Bergeron’s goal midway through the third period created a two-goal cushion.

Carey Price finished with 32 saves for the Canadians, who have won two straight Olympic gold medals and 15 consecutive best-on-best hockey games since losing to the U.S. at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

In most of those wins, they were much more dominant.

“We can be better, but ultimately we found a way to win,” Sidney Crosby said.

Slovakia’s Tomas Tatar scored his third goal in two games 7 minutes into the second period to get Europe within one.

Jaroslav Halak, who is also from Slovakia, stopped 35 shots for the unique team made up of eight European nations outside of the continent’s traditional powers.

The Canadians were playing at home, but didn’t seem to get much of an emotional boost in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ arena, where there were a lot of empty seats and suites.

The NHL and NHL Players’ Association combined to revive the event, which hasn’t been held since 2004, with a twist. They created Team Europe and Team North America, a squad made up of players 23 and younger from the U.S. and Canada. The format created a highly competitive eight-team field, but as Babcock said earlier in the day, “The World Cup is great. It’s not the Olympics . Let’s not get confused.”

There was no confusion about who had more talent on the ice, but Europe got off to a strong start and put pressure on a star-studded squad that has been behind just twice in five games and for a little more than a minute each time against the U.S. and Russia.

Crosby’s second assist of the night and his World Cup-high ninth point helped Canada to a 3-1 lead.