MINSK, Belarus (AP) - Cody Hodgson scored twice in the second period to help spark Canada’s 6-1 win over Italy at the ice hockey world championship on Friday, while the United States ended a two-game losing streak by beating Kazakhstan 4-3 in overtime.
Also Friday, defending champion Sweden remained unbeaten after five games to book a place in the quarterfinals with a 3-1 victory over Slovakia and Finland prevailed 3-2 over Switzerland in a penalty shootout.
Just a day after scoring a hat trick against Denmark, Hodgson made it 2-0 on a power play and added Canada’s fifth 15 minutes later to become the tournament’s leading scorer with six goals.
“I’m playing with some good wingers right now,” Hodgson said. “It seems like we’re generating a lot of chances as a line and on the power play. Hopefully it continues.”
Joel Ward, Jason Chimera, Kyle Turris and Brayden Schenn also netted for Canada, which is second in the eight-team Group A with 13 point, one behind Sweden after four wins out of five. Italy is at the bottom together with Denmark with three points. David Borrelli scored Italy’s consolation goal.
Seth Jones scored twice for the U.S. team and had one assist. He tied the game at 2-2 in the second period and added the winner 1:05 in overtime with a high wrist shot.
“It just came to me naturally,” Jones said. “We definitely wanted to win this one. We didn’t want it to be as close as it was, to be honest, it’s just a good thing we got the points.”
Veteran goaltender Tim Thomas saved a penalty shot in the third when the Americans were up 3-2 but Roman Starchenko forced overtime with his second goal with 6:50 remaining in regulation.
“After the two losses, this is a very important game for us,” Thomas said. “You’ve got to grow during the tournament. Overall, we did a lot of good things (today).”
Craig Smith scored a power play goal and added an assist and Matt Donovan also scored as the U.S. bounced back from losses to Russia and Latvia.
The U.S. outshot Kazakhstan 40-25.
Gustav Nyquist and Mikael Backlund scored a power-play goal each in the first period and Magnus Nygren added one on in the third for Sweden. Slovakia replied with a goal from Martin Marincin in the second period.
“We got a much better start than we have done in the previous games, and when we got that third goal, it was huge,” Nyquist said.
Iiro Pakarinen scored the decisive goal in the shootout for Finland.
Tommi Kivisto and Olli Jokinen put Finland ahead 2-0 before Switzerland tied it with third-period goals from Reto Suri and Roman Josi.
The U.S. and Finland are third in Group B with eight points, one behind Latvia and four behind Russia. Switzerland has four and Kazakhstan is at the bottom with two.
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