Three teams remained perfect at the World Championship on Monday – Sweden, Canada and the USA – while Karpat's Joonas Kemppainen was the big performer from the CHL with three points for Finland. 

by Derek O'Brien, with contributions from Staff Writers

PRAGUE and OSTRAVA – As teams started playing their third games of the group stage on Monday, three teams remained unbeaten at the end of the day – Sweden and Canada in Group A and the USA in Group B.

In Group A in Prague, Sweden started the day with a big 8–1 win over Latvia, their third straight win and second straight game in which a player recorded a hat-trick – this one by Loui Eriksson.

“We were pretty good on the power play today, that was the key for us,” said Joel Lundqvist of Frolunda Gothenburg, who scored one goal on the power play and also had an assist. “It was a pretty tight game for the first half before we took over, especially our power play was really good, but the next game against Canada's going to be different, for sure.”

That's because Canada is also 3–0 after a 6–3 win after the host team from the Czech Republic later in the evening. In fact, Canada has one more point, as all three of its wins have come in regulation, out-scoring its opponents 22–4 in the process. The game between Canada and Sweden on Wednesday will almost certainly decide first place in the group.

“Losing 6–3 to Canada is annoying, but what can you do?” HC Pardubice defenceman Petr Caslava wondered afterward. “We didn't get it done in the second half of the game and they scored on our mistakes. Overall, the first half of the game was good, but in the second we stopped playing the way we wanted. You can't give those kinds of players players that much space. Maybe we pulled back too much and weren't aggressive enough.” 

In Ostrava, Team USA also remains a perfect 3–0 after defeating Russia by a 4–2 score. Having beaten the Russians and the Finns, the Americans are now in the driver's seat in Group B. Finland, who opened with a big loss to the Americans, have now shut out their opponents two games in a row, beating Norway 5–0 in Monday's late game. Karpat Oulu's Joonas Kemppainen had two goals and one assist.

“I'm not usually on the top power-play unit, but one of our guys broke his helmet so couldn't play,” Kemppainen explained. “The coach sent me out, and we got two almost identical goals from it. 

On Finland's play so far in the tournament, Kemppainen said, “The first game was pretty bad for us. I think we've played two good games now so we can be happy, but we can still play much better.”