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Breaking: Unbelievable! John Tavares Leads Canada to Semifinals with Jaw-Dropping Assist Against Slovakia
Tavares added a secondary assist to his tournament total of one goal and eight assists after seven games.
John Tavares and Canada advanced to the Men’s World Hockey Championship quarterfinals on Saturday, defeating Slovakia 6-3 in the tournament’s first quarterfinal clash.
The Toronto Maple Leafs captain helped secure the team’s berth in the playoffs on Saturday, feeding Bowen Byram at the point for a shot that had traffic, before Pierre-Luc Dubois cleaned up the rebound to put Canada ahead 2-0 just under two minutes after Jared McCann scored.
Canada’s 5-2-0-0 record in the preliminary round propelled them to the top of the Group ‘A’ rankings, setting up a straightforward clash with Slovakia, who finished fourth in Group ‘B’ with a 3-1-1-2 record.
On Thursday, Canada controlled the game from start to end, leading 5-1 less than halfway through the fourth frame. The Canadians outshot their opponents 43-21 in the contest, keeping their tournament win streak intact after eight games.
Tavares now has nine points in seven games (1G, 8A), trailing only Dylan Cozens (8G, 2A) as the Canadian team’s leading scorer.
From a team standpoint, Canada is second in scoring efficiency and seventh in power play percentage, having capitalized on 6/27 attempts (22.22% success rate) with the man advantage.
Canada will want to improve their penalty kill unit, which is presently rated 11th out of 16 teams in the tournament, as they prepare for the semifinals.
After conceding their sixth goal of the tournament against Marek Hrivik of Slovakia while down a man on Thursday, Canada has now conceded six goals on 27 penalties, for a 77.78% rate.
Canada will play in the semifinals on Saturday at either 8:20 a.m. ET or 12:20 p.m. ET, as they await their next opponent.
