World Championship Recap - 21.05.26

Martin Pospisil opened his 2026 IIHF World Championship goals ledger in Slovakia's win over Denmark, while Zach Whitecloud and Olli Määttä both played big minutes on the blue line in Canadian and Finnish victories Thursday in Zurich and Fribourg, Switzerland.

Canada 6, Norway 5 (OT)

Mark Scheifele's hat-trick included the overtime decider as Canada overcame 2-0, 3-2 and 5-4 deficits to defeat Norway in an 11-goal thriller. The Winnipeg Jets centre scored twice in the opening frame, then capped off his night with a goal 29 seconds into extra time after Ryan O'Reilly forced OT with a late third-period equalizer.

Whitecloud finished the contest +1 with one shot on goal over his 16:14 of work on the Canadian blue line.

Latvia 1, Finland 7

Määttä and the Finns cruised past Latvia 7-1 to keep their perfect record intact through four Group A contests.

Finland scored seven unanswered goals after surrendering the ice-breaker early in the first period, with Henri Jokiharju's tally at 10:19 of the opening frame standing up as the game-winner. In all, seven different skaters lit the lamp for the Finns including Florida's Anton Lundell and Vancouver's Aatu Raty, both of whom tallied in the third period.

The Flames defenceman finished +2 on the evening, while also logging the second-most ice-time (18:28) of any Finnish blueliner.

Finland sits second in Group A despite holding a maximum 12 points from their four contests; they're three points behind the host Swiss, who improved to 5-0-0-0 Thursday evening.

Denmark 1, Slovakia 5

Pospisil scored his first goal of this year's World Championship as part of Slovakia's 5-1 win over Denmark.

The Flames forward gobbled up a rebound in front of the Danish net before ripping a rolling puck past goalie Nicolaj Henriksen to extend Slovakia's lead to 4-1  3:51 into the third period.

Pospisil's brother Kristian finished the contest with an assist, while former Lethbridge Hurricanes star Oliver Okuliar finished with a three-point night for the Slovaks.

With the win, Slovakia moved into a tie with Canada for top spot in Group B. Both teams have 11 points, one better than third-place Czechia.

Friday's World Championship slate features two games with Flames flavour.

First, Whitecloud, Ryan Huska and Team Canada take on Slovenia at 8:20 a.m. MT, before Määttä and the Finns lock horns with Great Britain at 12:20 p.m. MT.