Rielly Has 3 Points In Canada's Win

Written by Marc Smith on Friday, 28 December 2012

Moose Jaw Warrior Morgan Rielly helped Canada to their second win in as many games at the 2013 World Junior Hockey Championships in Ufa, Russia on Friday morning.  Rielly had a goal and three points in the 6-3 win for Canada over Slovakia that put them to 2-0 for the tournament.

The game didn't start out great for Canada as Slovakia jumped out to an early lead on a goal by Marko Dano just 2:53 into the first period.  

Canada ran into some penalty trouble late in the frame as JC Lipon, a Regina native and Kamloops Blazer, was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for checking to the head.  The Slovaks capitalized on the five-minute man advantage, scoring midway through with Tomas Mikus giving them a 2-0 lead.

A goal by Ryan Strome just 2:16 into the second period cut the lead to 2-1, but just a bit later, Canada had their second forward thrown out of the game.  Anthony Camara picked up a five-minute major and a game misconduct for charging to put Canada down to ten forwards for the rest of the game.

Slovakia again capitalized on the lengthy man advantage and took a 3-1 lead on Dano's second of the game.

That hit by Camara and the ensuing goal by the Slovaks seemed to wake up Team Canada as they took control of the game after that.  Rielly scored a power play goal just a over a minute after Dano's goal to cut the lead back down to one.  Rielly let a blast go from the face-off dot that blew past goalie Adam Nagy.

Canada continued to roll after that with Ty Rattie taking a beautiful backdoor pass from Xavier Ouellet for another power play goal.  Rielly picked up an assist on that goal as well.  Then with 59 seconds left in the period, Mark Scheifele scored to make 4-3 for Canada heading into the break.

A great move in close on the Slovakia net by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins extended Canada's lead to 5-3 just 3:32 into the third period.  Canada iced the game with Strome's second of the game a few minutes later.

Malcolm Subban made 25 saves to pick up his second straight win for Canada.  Nagy had to make 24 saves in the loss for Slovakia.

Next up for Canada is a meeting with the United States coming up on Sunday at 3:30am and then they'll wrap up the round robin with a New Year's Eve game against Russia on Monday at 8:00am.