(Ottawa) Eriks Mateiko scored the only goal in the shootout and Latvia defeated an uninspired Canada 3-2 on Friday at the World Junior Hockey Championship.
Posted at 10:59 p.m.
Updated at 11:21 p.m.
Joshua Clipperton
The Canadian Press
The forward was his team’s eighth shooter and beat Jack Ivankovic with a good wrist shot to create one of the biggest upsets in tournament history.
Mateiko and Peteris Bulans scored in regulation time for the Latvians, who worked hard in their first match in the national capital. Bruno Osmanis had two assists.
Goaltender Linards Feldbergs, who wears the colors of the Sherbrooke Phoenix in the QMJHL, stopped 54 shots.
Calum Ritchie and Jett Luchanko responded on the Canadian side. Ivankovic made 24 saves.
Canada, which is aiming for its 20e gold medal, had won its previous four meetings against Latvia by a combined score of 41-4, including a 10-0 victory about 12 months ago.
After the Latvians tied the score 1-1 on the power play, in the third period, Ritchie gave his team the lead again with a one-timer, off a pass from Easton Cowan.
But Ethan Gauthier was punished for hooking with a little more than three minutes to play and Bulans tied the score on the power play with 2:29 to go.
Canada took a penalty for too many men on the ice in overtime, at 3-on-3, but survived the shorthanded situation to force the shootout that few predicted before the opening faceoff.
Ivankovic became only the third 17-year-old goalkeeper to represent Canada in this competition and the first to start a match since Jimmy Waite in 1987. Brian Finley made his debut at age 17 in 1999.
The Mississauga, Ont., goaltender replaced Carter George, who made 31 saves in a 4-0 win over Finland in Thursday’s opener.
Hockey Canada’s think tank, led by Peter Anholt, explained before the tournament that the group was much better prepared this time around after the disastrous performance in Gothenburg, Sweden, which saw the Canadian powerhouse eliminated by the Czech Republic in the quarter-finals.
The coaching staff led by Dave Cameron was in place from the start, while the program also held a summer camp and hired a full-time recruiter.
The management team insisted that all the elements were in place. In short, there was no excuse.
Canada, however, didn’t have many answers against one of the sport’s small names on Friday, despite the presence of 11 first-round NHL picks and three other players expected to be among the top picks in both next drafts.
A disjointed performance in the first 20 minutes was marred by an injury to defenseman Matthew Schaefer – a potential top pick in the 2025 NHL draft – after he slammed into the Latvian net on the power play.
Ivankovic had to be sharp on a few penalty kills and a scoring chance from Olivers Murnieks.
Things didn’t improve much after that.
Canada scored its first goal at 3:28 of the second period when Luchanko stole a shorthanded puck and scored on a breakaway after Feldbergs decided to stay in his semi-circle.
The Canadians, 0 for 3 on the power play against Finland, fell to 0 for 6 later in the period after two lifeless power plays.
While his team seemed content to stay on the outside looking in and not challenge the Latvians in the middle of the ice – an unfortunate feature of the 2024 edition – Cameron lashed out at his players on the bench late in the game. ‘commitment.
The crowd at the Canadian Tire Center tried to lift the country’s young players midway through the third period, but the group kept looking for answers that just weren’t there.
Canadian defenseman Andrew Gibson then took an elbowing penalty, which set up Mateiko’s goal with 6:42 left in regulation before Ritchie and Mateiko traded goals late in the period .
