3
HALIFAX — Eric Staal picked a good time to make his presence felt at the IIHF World Hockey Championship.
The Canadian forward picked up his first four goals of the tournament in the team's 10-1 rout of Germany on Saturday. He also added an assist during a game that really could have used a mercy rule.
At the end of the second period, the Canadians had almost as many goals (nine) as the Germans had shots (10).
Jason Spezza, Dany Heatley, Patrick Sharp, Derek Roy and Mike Green also scored for Canada while Martin St. Louis picked up five assists.
Frank Hordler spoiled Cam Ward's shutout bid with a goal for Germany midway through the third period.
The German team has been surrounded by scandal during this event and simply didn't have any life against the Canadians, who skated as well as they have all tournament.
Canada has a 5-0 record here but it's hard to gauge exactly where the team is at because it's yet to face one of the other big powers. Monday's game against Finland could be an important one as the winner gets the top seed heading into the quarter-finals and will likely face Norway in the first must-win game.
Staal is one of the Canadian forwards who will be needed to provide secondary scoring in the big games. He and St. Louis became the sixth and seventh Canadian players in the modern era to record five points in a game at this event. Eric Lindros holds the record with six – a feat he accomplished twice during the 1993 world championship in Germany.
This game got ugly in a hurry.
Spezza opened the scoring at 5:14 of the first period when he skated in off the wing and outwaited Dimitrij Kotschnew before sliding the puck between the German goalie's legs. He was dropped to the fourth line early in the event after struggling to find his rhythm and celebrated his first goal here by pumping his fist enthusiastically.
A familiar figure extended the lead to 2-0. Heatley scored his tournament-leading seventh goal after beating a defender and knocking his own rebound by Kotschnew at 13:35.
Staal's first of the night came 30 seconds later and Sharp made it 4-0 with 22.9 seconds left in the first period when his centring pass went in off a skate.
German coach Uwe Krupp sent in goalie Robert Mueller to start the second period but there was nothing he could do to stop the onslaught. Staal scored two goals in the first 8:20 of the second period to complete the hat trick before getting a fourth at 15:30.
Roy and Mayers also had goals in the frame to make it 9-0 after 40 minutes, prompting some of the 9,182 fans at the Metro Centre to head for their cars early.
Green scored a power-play goal at 1:47 of the third period to go along with two assists.
Hordler was the last German to touch the puck before Canadian defenceman Dan Hamhuis inadvertently knocked it into his own goal at 8:40.
It was the only piece of good fortune for the German team, which was officially eliminated from quarter-final contention with the ugly loss.
