Canada survives Slovenia upset bid on Stamkos goal

Steven Stamkos saved Canada from a potentially devastating loss Monday at the 2013 IIHF World Championship.

Stamkos scored his second goal of the game 3:36 into overtime as the Canada rallied from 2-0 and 3-2 deficits for a 4-3 win against Slovenia in a game at Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden.

The victory, in Canada's final preliminary-round game of the tournament, keeps its hopes alive for finishing atop the Sweden group. Canada moved ahead of Switzerland, which owns a head-to-head victory against Canada and still has a game remaining, against Belarus on Tuesday.

Brenden Dillon also came up big for Canada, scoring the only goal of the third period at the 7:09 mark to force the extra session. Matt Duchene also had a goal and Devan Dubnyk made 17 saves for Canada.

"Today's game was about finding a way to win," captain Eric Staal told the IIHF website. "It doesn't matter how you do it, as long as you do. Whether bounces work against you, you have to capitalize on your chances."

Slovenia was led in its upset bid by a pair of first-period goals by Jan Urbas that put Canada behind the eight-ball, and a goal from captain Tomaz Razingar. They also received a strong effort in goal from Luka Gracnar, who stopped 35 shots.

Urbas beat Dubnyk twice in a span of 2:43 for the first period's only goals. Duchene and Stamkos scored 50 seconds apart early in the second to draw Canada even, but they were soon trailing again after Razingar lit the lamp at the 7:17 mark.

Russia 8, Austria 4: Semyon Varlamov made 32 saves and eight different players scored as Russia doubled up Austria in a game played at Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, Finland.

Ilya Kovalchuk led the way with a goal and two assists, while Alexander Radulov, Ilya Nikulin and Sergei Mozyakin each had a goal and an assist for Russia, which found itself tied 3-3 with Austria after the first period before pulling away over the final 40 minutes.

Thomas Vanek and Michael Raffl led Austria with a goal and an assist apiece.

Mozyakin scored the go-ahead goal 11:07 into the second as Russia scored four unanswered goals. Sergei Soin had a shorthanded goal late in the second and Nikita Zaitsev and Yevgeni Kuznetsov scored in the third.

"I think the schedule's good for us," Kovalchuk told the IIHF website. "We have a couple of days to prepare ourselves for the quarterfinal. You can't lose any more in this tournament."

Alexander Perezhogin and Kovalchuk scored in the first 8:15 of the game to get Russia off to a fast start, but Matthias Iberer and Vanek answered with goals 15 seconds apart and Raffl gave Austria a brief 3-2 lead.

Nikulin scored near the end of the first on a two-man advantage and Radulov added a power-play goal early in the second, but Florian Iberer made it a 4-4 game before Russia took control.

Denmark 3, Belarus 2: Morten Green's shorthanded goal in the second period held up as the game-winner and Simon Nielsen stopped 17 shots as Denmark avoided relegation.

Philip Larsen had a power-play goal and Nicklas Jensen also scored for Denmark, which raced to a 3-0 lead before Konstantin Koltsov and Roman Graborenko answered for Belarus.

Latvia 3, France 1: Janis Sprukts had a goal and two assists for Latvia, which ruined France's hopes to advance the quarterfinals and improved to 4-0 all-time in their meetings at the Worlds.

Kristers Gudlevskis made 28 saves for Latvia, which also received goals from Martins Cipulis and Lauris Darzins. France got a power-play goal from Julien Desrosiers in the third period.