WATCH ABOVE: Canada wins gold at world hockey championship
PRAGUE — Sidney Crosby led Canada to its first hockey world championship title since 2007 Sunday with a goal and an assist in a dominant 6-1 victory over defending champion Russia in the final.
In a meeting of the two most decorated teams in world championship history, Canada claimed its 25th title with another attacking display that Russia simply couldn’t cope with.
Canada outshot the Russians 15-5 in the opening period and 14-1 in the second.
Goaltender Mike Smith stopped 11 shots.
Six players scored for Canada, with Dallas Stars center Cody Eakin putting his team ahead late in the first period before Buffalo Sabres center Tyler Ennis, Crosby and Dallas Stars forward Tyler Seguin decided the game in a six-minute span in the second.
The Crosby-led team, coached by Todd McLellan, dominated throughout the tournament, winning all 10 games and scoring 66 goals. By winning all games in regulation, it won a new bonus of 1 million Swiss francs ($1.09 million).
Russia goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky made several good saves to keep Canada at bay until Eakin deflected a shot by Tyler Eanis into the net with 1:50 left in the first period.
Ennis took the puck on the Russian blue line and skated around the goal to net the second 1:56 into the middle period and Crosby scored with a one-timer off Jordan Eberle’s pass from behind the net before Seguin scored his ninth goal of the tournament.
Philadelphia Flyers forwards Claude Giroux and Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon added one each in the third before Russia’s got a consolation goal from Evgeni Malkin.
Earlier, the United States beat the Czech Republic 3-0 to claim a second bronze medal in three years.
The U.S. bounced back from a 4-0 loss to Russia in the semifinals on Saturday. Nick Bonino scored 7:25 into the game and Trevor Lewis got the second with 1:57 to go in the first.
After the U.S. killed a four-minute, one-man advantage, Charlie Coyle netted the third with 50 seconds left in the second to wrap up a decent tournament for the young American team. Bonino and Coyle also had an assist each.
“It was a great effort tonight. We were little bit of shaky at the start but once we settled things down we played pretty well,” said Lewis, the Los Angeles Kings forward. “We’re a young group, we battled hard all the way through. To come out with the medal is awesome.”
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