World Championship Recap - 10.05.25

Ryan Huska, MacKenzie Weegar and a stacked Canadian team took care of business, opening the 2025 IIHF World Championship with a 4-0 win over Slovenia in their first game of the round robin.

Weegar finished with an assist, along with four penalty minutes and a +1 rating, in 14:13 of ice time.

Meanwhile, Rasmus Andersson, Mikael Backlund and the hometown Swedes improved to 2-0, as they rallied from a late deficit to knock off the Austrians 4-2.

Andersson had the primary assist on Mika Zibanejad's game-winning tally, which came only 12 seconds after Sweden pulled even.

The Flames rearguard, who was recently named captain of the blue-and-gold outfit, logged a team-leading 22:53 of ice time, with one shot and the aforementioned helper. Mikael Backlund was a physical force for the Swedes and finished the night with 10:41 of work.

Canada 4, Slovenia 0

Bo Horvat scored a pair of powerplay goals, while Nathan MacKinnon - who had the primaries on both - paced the Canadians with a goal and two helpers, as the red and white cruised to victory.

Goaltender Dylan Garand - a 22-year-old fourth-round pick of the New York Rangers - made 11 saves for the shutout.

Weegar, meanwhile, hit the scoresheet early in the second period when he traded passes with MacKinnon in the neutral zone, gained the line with speed and dished off to the Colorado sniper in full flight. MacKinnon, wearing No. 9, as veteran Marc-Andre Fleury sports his usual digits - made no mistake with a cheeky shot five-hole to extend Canada's lead to 2-0.

Horvot and Noah Dobson added powerplay tallies later in the period to round out the scoring.

Canada out-shot Slovenia 44-11 on the night.

Weegar and the Canadians are back in action tomorrow when they square off with Latvia at 8:20 a.m. MT.

Sweden 4, Austria 2

"The joint is jumping now!" shouted play-by-play voice Gord Miller.

You can say that again.

Down 2-1 late in the third period, Sweden scored twice, 12 seconds apart, to grab their first lead and coast the remaning 2:07 to finish line, as Tre Kronor moved to a perfect 2-0 with a dramatic, 4-2 victory.

Zibanejad played the hero, capitalizing on what appeared to be a set piece on the faceoff, blistering a one-timer from the high slot off an Andersson feed to send the Avicii Arena into a frenzy.

Jonas Brodin tied it moments earlier with a long-range point blast, after Austria's Marco Kasper put his club on top earlier in the third period.

Backlund got in on the action, too, setting up Alexander Wennberg's empty-net goal with 1:21 to play, icing a 4-2 victory.

The underog Austrians drew first blood in the opening minutes of the second, stunning the capacity crowd despite being soundly outplayed.

Thomas Raffl led a 2-on-1 with Benjamin Baumgartner and fired a beautiful shot-pass off the right pad of goaltender Samuel Ersson. Baumgartner then scooped up the loose change and roofed it in tight, giving his team a 1-0 lead on just their fifth shot of the contest.

Zibanejad evened things up with a powerplay marker at 13:26 - his bid from distance finding a lane through traffic and beating a screened David Kickert.

Sweden had trouble generating for much for the evening. But they took over when it mattered most, out-shooting 7-4 in the period and 25-16 overall.