The Athletic’s 2025 World Juniors coverage continues on Day 2.
The first day of competition didn’t produce too many surprises. Axel Sandin-Pellikka powered the Swedes to an opening-day win over Slovakia with a hat trick, the Americans put a 10-spot up on Germany, Czechia dominated Switzerland and Gavin McKenna announced himself to the hockey world in a 4-0 shutout win for Canada over Finland.
CANADA STRIKES FIRST 🗣️
Gavin McKenna buries his own rebound to give Canada a 1-0 lead.#WorldJuniors pic.twitter.com/7RwTO9jSBv
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) December 27, 2024
“It felt great,” McKenna told TSN during the game’s first intermission. “I thought (Matthew Schaefer) made a beautiful play there, seamed it to me. Had the rebound there and just had to bury it.”
Canada’s goal song at this year’s tournament is “Live is Life” by Austrian band Opus. McKenna said that it was Canada’s goal song during this year’s U18 Hlinka-Gretzky Cup in the summer; Canada defeated the United States in the final in Finland.
“It’s a good one that won us the tournament, so I like it,” McKenna said.
It might not be a unanimous favorite among all Canadian fans, but they won’t mind if it means more pucks in the back of the net.
Latvia and Kazakhstan will play their first games of the tournament today, both against heavyweights in Canada and Sweden, respectively.
Today’s schedule
• Switzerland vs. Slovakia, 1 p.m. ET/ 10 a.m. PT
• Germany vs. Finland, 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT
• Sweden vs. Kazakhstan, 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT
• Latvia vs. Canada, 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT
Axel Sandin-Pellikka speaks with Swedish media after scoring a natural hat trick in a 5-2 win over Slovakia. (Sarah Jean Maher / The Athletic)
Sandin-Pellikka kicks things off
A good captain wants to lead by example. Axel Sandin-Pellikka said it himself Sunday afternoon.
“I feel like everyone can come and talk to me, but I mostly lead by example,” said the Swedish captain.
But whether he was totally expecting the defense to lead the offense in Sweden’s 5-2 win over Slovakia is another thing.
The Detroit Red Wings prospect and Swedish captain scored a natural hat trick in the tournament’s opening game to kick off his third World Juniors.
“We have a lot of good defensemen here in the team that likes to play with the puck, so it’s fun. Fun we got some goals from there,” Sandin-Pellikka said. “I think we played a good game overall, so we’re happy.”
Sweden’s other goals came from forward Linus Eriksson and defenseman Rasmus Bergqvist. Forwards Dalibor Dvorsky and Daniel Jencko scored for Slovakia.
“We just had patience. You know, we can’t stress anything just because they lead 1-0,” Sandin-Pellikka said of his team’s win. “We knew we had had a lot of chances. So we knew that the pucks were going to go in the net soon enough and they did.”
Sandin-Pellikka, selected by the Detroit Red Wings with the No. 17 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, entered the tournament a much more confident player, something he says is “a little bit easier when you’ve been there two times before.”
Playing with confidence as a team is going to be one of the keys to beating a tough team like Canada, to whom they lost in the pre-tournament, or USA, who beat Sweden to win gold at last year’s tournament.
“Play with a lot of confidence. I mean, we want to play with the puck. We want to feel like we can make plays all the time and not stress up anything,” Sandin-Pellikka said. “So most of that, just play with the puck very well and with confidence.”
The Slovakian faithful came out to support the team, who will continue their tournament on Friday against Switzerland. (Sarah Jean Maher / The Athletic)
Required reading
• Inside the rise of Team Canada’s Tanner Molendyk: ‘He’s the most beautiful skater I’ve ever seen’
• Swedish captain Axel Sandin-Pellikka, USA’s top line shine on Boxing Day at World Juniors
• 2025 World Juniors predictions: Medalists, Canada vs. USA, awards, relegation and more
• NHL Draft stock watch: How is the 2025 top 5 shaping up ahead of World Juniors?
• Jordan Eberle, John Tavares and Canada’s golden triumph at the 2009 World Juniors: ‘Can you believe it?’
(Top photo of Gavin McKenna: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
