World Juniors Update: Myers Hurt, USA Tops Canada

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

The most anticipated match of the World Junior Championships so far was on Saturday afternoon with undefeated Team USA facing also unbeaten Canada.

For one Flyers prospect, the game, and possibly the tournament, ended early.

Philippe Myers was the victim of a high hit into the boards away from the puck by USA captain and Minnesota Wild prospect Luke Kunin at 4:06 of the second period. Myers left the game and it was announced after that he has a concussion and there is no timetable for his return. Kunin was assessed a five-minute major for interference and a game misconduct.

Video of the hit is below.

Myers was having a strong tournament as the fourth game for Canada came on Saturday. In the first three games, Myers had three assists, three shots on goal and was a plus-one while averaging nearly 19 minutes of ice time per game.

USA claimed victory in the game by a score of 3-1. Canada opted to use Connor Ingram in goal, following a planned rotation of netminders before the medal round, so Carter Hart had the day off.

The US took a 2-0 lead in the first on power-play goals by Colin White and Jordan Greenway. Canada cut the lead to one in the second with a goal by Thomas Chabot on the power play, but USA answered with a goal by Jeremy Bracco to bring the lead back to two. Goalie Joseph Woll made 25 saves to preserve the win for USA, who heads to the medal round as the top seed in Group B.

For Team USA, Tanner Laczynski was a plus-one in 12:45 of ice time.

Earlier in the day, Sweden also improved to 4-0 in the tournament with a 5-2 win over Czech Republic. Flyers goalie prospect Felix Sandstrom got the day off after winning the first three games for Sweden. Defensive prospect David Bernhardt added an assist on Sweden's third goal.

Sweden pulled out to a 5-0 lead before Czech Republic picked up two goals in the final seven minutes of the third. The first goal came courtesy of Flyers forward prospect David Kase for his first point of the tournament. He added an assist on Czech Republic's second goal on the power play.

In a game that had no bearing on tournament results and had no Flyers prospects participating, Finland topped Switzerland, 2-0, in their final game of the tournament. The defending champs failed to reach the medal round after dropping their first three games. 

Russia defeated Slovakia, 2-0, in the final game of the day and preliminary round. Mikhail Vorobyov was held to one shot in 17:29 of ice time. He also took a hooking penalty. German Rubtsov played just 9:43 in the game and did not factor into the scoring or record a shot on goal.

In goal for Slovakia was Matej Tomek. Tomek made 28 saves on 30 shots in the game, despite taking his second loss of the tournament.

With the completion of the preliminary round, the medal round begins with the quarterfinals on Monday. The schedule is as follows. Denmark will play Russia at 1 p.m. Sweden goes against Slovakia at 3:30 p.m. USA will face Switzerland at 5:30 p.m. Canada closes the quarterfinals against the Czech Republic at 8 p.m.

The winners of Denmark-Russia and USA-Switzerland will meet in a semi-final game while the winners of Sweden-Slovakia and Canada-Czech Republic will oppose each other in a semi-final game.

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