HELSINKI Finland — Pierre-Luc Dubois scored twice for Canada and led them to a 5-3 win over Germany in the opening game of the world ice Hockey championship.
Cole Sillinger, Dubois and Dubois both scored from the slot during the first period of Group A in Helsinki.
Germany reduced its deficit to one. Kent Johnson and Dubois scored power-play goals. Noah Gregor added one to extend the lead to 5-1 in the middle period.
Moritz Seider scored a goal for Germany and had two assists.
After the opening period, the United States took a commanding lead of 3-0 over Latvia and cruised to a comfortable 4-1 win in Tampere’s Group B opener.
Captain Seth Jones scored a power play goal as well as an assist on a shorthanded one. Riley Barber and Thomas Bordeleau also scored. Sam Lafferty was the third to score. Goaltender Strauss Mann stopped 24 shots.
Toni Rajala, last year’s runnerup, scored two goals and provided two assists in another Group-B game. Finland defeated Norway 5-0.
In Group A, Slovakia beat France 4-2.
This is the first World Championship without Russian representation since 1962 when the Soviet Union was not represented in Colorado.
Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine caused tournament host Finland, to expel Russia and its ally Belarus. They were replaced by France and Austria by the International Ice Hockey Federation, who stripped Russia of hosting rights for the 2023 World Championship.