Opening with a pair of one-sided wins was a confidence booster for Canada but now comes the first real test at the world junior championship: Finland.
Canada (2-0-0) enters Monday's game at the Bell Centre on a high after shutout wins over Slovakia and Germany, but the defending champion Finns (0-1-1) are a sharp step up in competition.
"They've yet to win a game, so they're going to be coming at us," forward Curtis Lazar said Sunday. "It'll probably be do or die for them.
"They really need to take a step in that direction, and we get the lucky draw of having to face them. We've got to try to weather the storm. They've got a great team all around and we have to be ready to play."
It has not gone well so far for Finland, which opened with a gutsy performance in a 2-1 shootout loss to the United States but then went south with a surprise 2-1 defeat to Slovakia after wasting a string of scoring chances.
Many of the same Finnish players, including defence ace Julius Hinka, captain Artturi Lehkonen and goalie Juuse Saros were riding high at last year's event in Malmo, Sweden, when they toppled Canada 5-1 in the semifinals before beating the Swedes to claim their first title since 1998.
They are sure to bring the same cautious, patience-testing game they always play to the rematch with Canada, which has seven players back from a year ago.
"They've got great goaltending too," added Lazar, one of the returnees. "We're going to have to get some good traffic in front of their goalie.
"Their defence does a great job of moving the puck and they've got some crafty forwards as well. So they're going to keep us on our toes, but if we play the way we can, we'll be fine."
Fucale will start in goal
Zach Fucale, who needed to make only 12 saves in the opening 8-0 rout of Slovakia, will be back in goal after Eric Comrie picked up a 17-save shutout against the Germans.
Fucale was in the net for last year's loss to the Finns, who took the lead in the second period on a fluke goal by Joni Nikko after Honka shot the puck in along the boards and saw it take a funny hop in front of the vacated net.
Finnish checking and counterattacking took over after that. The loss guaranteed that Canada would go a fifth straight year without a gold medal.
"I wouldn't say it's fresh in my mind, but I remember what happened and I learned from it," said Fucale. "It'll certainly serve as a motivator for the game."
Looking forward
Coach Benoit Groulx, an assistant to Brent Sutter last year, doesn't want to dwell on what happened a year ago. He said both teams are different and this is a new tournament.
The Finns no longer have star forward Teuvo Teravainen, who had three points in the semifinal.
But they have slick forward Kaspari Kapanen, a first-round pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins who missed last year's event with an injury. Finland also has six-foot-three dynamo Jesse Puljujarvi, who may be their most dangerous forward even if he's only 16.
As for Finland, Groulx is aware they will be a test for his team.
"They skate well, they have skills, they have a solid goalie and they play very good as a unit," said Groulx. "They're very good at blocking the middle of the ice and taking your time and space away, so it'll be a matter of us of managing the puck well and making sure we put ourselves in position to use our speed."
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