Written by Carol Schram at CBCSports.com
Connor McDavid’s first goal of the world hockey championship proved to be golden. The defence and goaltending took care of the rest.
McDavid’s goal in the first period stood as the winner, backing a 16-save shutout from Cam Talbot as Canada successfully defended its world championship title with a 2-0 win over Finland in the tournament final on Sunday in Moscow.
“We didn’t really feed into their transition and didn’t really give them any chance to get anything going off the rush or the end zone,” McDavid said. “Anything that we did give up, [Talbot] was amazing.”
The 19-year-old Oilers centre, who became the youngest player ever to win gold at the world under-18 tournament, world junior championship and world championship, had eight assists in the first nine games of the tournament, but was one of just two Canadian forwards not to have recorded a goal coming into the gold-medal game.
McDavid ended his drought at the 11:24 mark of the first period, driving to the net and deking out sprawling Finnish netminder Mikko Koskinen.
Matt Duchene added an empty-net goal with one second left on the clock to seal the win.
Talbot’s shutout was his tournament-leading fourth.
“I think we did a good job defensively as a group,” said coach Bill Peters. “Our goaltenders were outstanding each and every night. I think the team in front of [Talbot] was better tonight than the team in front of him versus Finland in the round-robin play [when Canada lost its only game, 4-0].”
The Canadians registered the first seven shots of the game and made adjustments based on what they’d seen from Finland in the preliminary round.
“We used our speed more, we came up with numbers, we made sure we got it deep and we played them in the O zone,” said Duchene. “You look at the shots [33-16 for Canada]. I don’t know what they had but we doubled them up on shots. Their goalie was good again, They kept us to the outside.
“You get that one [goal] early and make them play from behind, it’s a different game.”
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