In this sometimes chippy affair, NIck Paul led the way with two goals and an assist, and Dylan Guenther had a goal and an assist. Jared McCann, Pierre Luc-Dubois, and Brandon Tanev also scored for Canada.
The Canadians, under returning head coach Andre Tourigny, are the defending champions and hope to repeat for the first time since 2015 and 2016. They remain undefeated in the Czech capital through eight games, including overtime wins over Austria (7-6) and Czechia (4-3).
Peter Cehlarik, Milos Kelemen, and Marek Hrivik replied for Slovakia.
Despite a creditable effort, Slovakia saw its streak of quarter-final disappointments continue. It has not made the semi-finals since 2012’s surprising silver medal run. That featured a 4-3 quarter-final upset over Canada. Michal Handzus got the power-play winner with 2:32 left.
Canada outshot Slovakia 43-21 in this duel between first-string goalies Jordan Binnington and Samuel Hlavaj.
The Canadians established control from the outset. Beyond the defensive side of the puck, they were better at converting their chances than their Central European foes.
McCann opened the scoring at 2:45. He took a nice headman feed from Colton Parayko, powered around defender Patrick Koch in the right faceoff circle and elevated the puck over Hlavaj while losing his stick in the process.
Two minutes later, Dubois lifted the rebound from Bowen Byram’s centre-pointer wrister past the Slovak netminder for a 2-0 lead.
At 7:56, the Slovaks got some life on a flukey goal. Rushing down right wing, Cehlarik attempted to saucer the puck to Simon at the crease, but a backchecking Brandon Hagel inadvertently tipped the puck past Binnington. The goal was credited to Cehlarik – who was named Best Forward at the 2021 Worlds – as his third of this tournament.
With under three minutes left in the first period, Slovakia had a golden opportunity to knot the score on a 2-on-1, but Milos Kelemen failed to convert Pavol Regenda’s cross-ice pass.
In the second period, the Slovaks came out hard early and fluffed another chance for the equalizer. Binnington gave up a juicy rebound, but Villam Cacho couldn’t bang it into a gaping net.
A beautiful tic-tac-toe passing play off the rush made it 3-1 at 3:48, courtesy of Canada’s fourth line. Guenther pulled up and found Connor…
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