Sidney Crosby showed off some superstar skill and scored his first goal of the men’s world hockey championship as Canada beat France 5-0 Tuesday.
Crosby put Canada up 3-0 on a power play late in the second period as he spun away from a defender, stickhandled to the net and fired a well-placed shot that found a small gap between the shoulder of French goaltender Julian Junca and the crossbar.
The Pittsburgh Penguins and Canada captain is playing in his first world championship since leading his country to a gold medal at the 2015 tournament in the Czech Republic.
Bo Horvat had two goals, including the game-winner in the first period, to give him four at the tournament. Will Cuylle and Brandon Montour also scored for Canada, which has a perfect nine points from three regulations wins so far to share the Group A lead with co-host Sweden.
WATCH | Crosby, Horvat power Canada past France:
Canada makes short work of France at world championship
Canada coach Dean Evason said Canada still has some things to work on as the tournament progresses.
“We corrected our start [to the game] tonight, but we did not love our second period because we felt like we cheated the game a bit,” Evason said. “We gave up a lot of odd-man rushes, and we need to clean that up because we got caught on the wrong side of the puck.
Jordan Binnington made 15 saves to pick up the shutout in his first start of the tournament. Binnington joined Canada after the St. Louis Blues were eliminated by Winnipeg in the first round of the NHL playoffs.
Binnington also played for Canada at last year’s world championship and more recently backstopped the country to the gold medal at the 4 Nations Face-Off.
“I had a lot of positive experiences [last year], and I felt like I still had some juice after the season, so I wanted to play for Canada and I am excited to be here,” he said.
Junca stopped 31 shots for France, which now has one point from an overtime loss and two regulation losses.
Canada’s next game is Thursday against Austria.
