Canada had a tough time cracking the armour of Austrian goalie Florian Vorauer, who was making his IIHF WM debut with the national team, but Nathan MacKinnon fired two goals in the second period and added an assist in the third as Canada earned an impressive 5-1 win over Austria. Brandon Montour contributed three assists for the winners.

Canada outshot their opponents, 52-16, but Vorauer was terrific from start to finish. 

"I found out yesterday that I would play," Vorauer said. "I was pretty excited to play against Canada. It was a tough game, but we tried our best to play well. It didn't go so well."

"I think we did a good job staying patient throughout the game," offered Canadian defender Mike Matheson. "We had a lot of pressure on them, but their goalie played really well. I think in the first period, he was seeing a lot of the puck. We weren't doing a good enough job getting in front of him."

The win keeps Canada in first place in Group A with a perfect 4-0 record while Austria drops to 0-1-0-3 and remains in sixth place with two points.



Austria has a quick turnaround now as the play France tomorrow afternoon. Canada has a day off before facing Slovakia on Saturday night.

“These teams come out hard against us, but we had plenty of chances and kept plugging away," added Montour. "Then we got one and two and then kept going. We have such a short time to come together, but we keep getting better,”

Despite outshooting the Austrians 23-4 in the opening period, it was the underdogs who skated off the ice after 20 minutes with a 1-0 lead. Canada threw everything at Vorauer, 25, but he was sensational.

And then, in the blink of an eye, Austria struck. Travis Sanheim pinched at the Austrian blue line and Benjamin Baumgartner chipped it by him. Brian Lebler got to it and quickly swatted it ahead to Vinzenz Rohrer, who found himself on a breakaway against Marc-Andre Fleury. Rohrer moved left and lifted it over Fleury’s glove in one motion, giving Austria the lead at 11:20. It was his first career World Championship goal.

"Scoring my first WM goal was a great moment," Rohrer said. "It was special to play against a lot of those players on Canada. It was cool."

This marked only the second time Austria has ever had a lead against Canada. On 25 April 2004, they led 1-0 after the first period and 2-0 after the second. Canada rallied to tie the game, 2-2, and that’s how the game ended, the only time Austria has earned a point from Canada in 12 games going back to 1931.

Canada continued to dominate and test Vorauer, but the goalie was almost unbeatable. Almost. Canada got an early power play in the second and connected just seven seconds later. Nathan MacKinnon looked for a pass, didn’t see anyone, and from the top of the circle fired a bullet past the goalie at 1:59.

Soon after, Austria had a nice chance to re-take the lead, but Marco Kasper’s shot off the rush was stopped nicely by Fleury’s left pad.

MacKinnon got his second of the night on perhaps the wildest delayed penalty situation you’ll ever see. Canada had possession in the Austrian end and Fleury on the bench for the better part of three minutes, passing, shooting, and preventing Austria from gaining possession to get the whistle. Finally, MacKinnon wired a shot past Vorauer at 13:10 to give the Canadians their first lead of the night.

Canada made it 3-1 at 8:32 of the third on a lucky play. Will Cuylle came out from behind the net, turned and fired, but the shot was tipped and the puck came right to Travis Konecny to the back side. There was no chance for Vorauer on the play.

As for Cuylle, he made up for the blocked shot by converting from further out just three minutes later, his shot beating the beleaguered Vorauer over the glove. Captain Sidney Crosby added a late goal off the rush, beating Vorauer to the short side at 18:27.