World Junior 2015: Canada's extra seasoning wins the day, but young Americans 'didn't get rattled'

MONTREAL — Till they meet again, perhaps in five days' time in Toronto for the gold medal.

Team Canada, based on what everyone's shown so far , could not have asked for an easier path to the world junior championship final. The combination of edging Team USA 5-3 for the top seed out of Group A puts it in a quarter-final sub-bracket with Denmark, the Czech Republic and  Slovakia. The quarters slated for Montreal — Russia against the U.S. and Finland against Sweden — involve the past four WJC champions.

The quintessence of Canada's win on Wednesday was its best five-player unit, the Sam Reinhart-Max Domi-Anthony Duclair first line and Darnell Nurse-Shea Theodre defence pairing, outplaying Team USA's best line. They had a 20-12 edge in shots over the listed first U.S. quintet of top NHL draft prospect Jack Eichel, wings Tyler Motte and Alex Tuch and top defence pairing Brandon Carlo and Will Butcher. Their only point was an Eichel secondary assist on a power-play goal. Reinhart had an 18-of-23 day on faceoffs while notching three points. Eichel, nearly 12 full months younger, was a 3-for-17. Similarly, the other young U.S. centre, 17-year-old Auston Matthews, was just 5-of-17.

Canada needed about 10 minutes to acclimatize to the Americans' talent. It allowed only 15 shots across the final 40 minutes and kept the U.S. without a shot for the first 11:46 in the third.

"The U.S. were skating well and constantly challenging our defencemen with pressure down low in our zone," coach  Benoît Groulx said. "We had to adapt to that. We haven't faced that much speed so far. The Finns were fast, but the U.S. are not only fast but very skilled and can pass the puck and make plays and they have crafty players. We adapted pretty well and were able to get into our rhythm. It was a very good game. We'll learn and prepare.

"Our defence uses their skating to retrieve pucks, to get out of the corner with it and they're good at blocking shots," Groulx added.

Canada will likely be better for the experience. Even though the emotional needle ran into the red, it largely stayed on the right side of the line, taking only three minor penalties.

"It's tough to stay within your comfort zone, but for the most part we were good with that," defenceman Dillon Heatherington said. "Playing with that energy is so fun exciting.

They were able to keep Eichel from going wild.

"He's just fast with great hockey sense and knows where to go on the ice when he wants to get opportunities," Theodore said. "Me and Nurse knew we were going to have to play well against him."

At the same time, a big takeaway from the contest was that Team USA hung around in spite of its supposed inexperience and starting so many shifts without the puck, thanks to losing 42 of 57 faceoffs. Coach Mark Osiecki lauded Canada for "unbelievable depth" but related that his team progressed greatly over 60 breathless minutes.

"The one thing that we liked about our group is the resilient part of it," said Osiecki, whose team got two goals from leading scorer Dylan Larkin. "We feel really good about the push back. They [Canada] played well against [Eichel's line], absolutely.

"The thing I'll say is our guys didn't get rattled whether they had success or not. Jack and his linemates kept trying to make plays. That's what you expect when you have that elite profile on you."

"This is great experience for our young kids to be to play a game like this and also experience the environment," added Osiecki, former coach of the BIg Ten's Ohio State Buckeyes who's now on staff with the AHL's Rockford Icehogs. "You go and look on January 2 [when the U.S. faces Russia in the quarter-final], they'll be much better for it."

On the surface, it might have looked like a decisive Canadian win that had a franctic finish thanks to Larkin's late goals, which Canada mooted with two last-minute empty netters. But even though Canada has an edge in physical maturity at centre and on the blueline, those might not come to the fore again in a rematch.

"Our centremen were pretty good tonight but as a team I thought the U.S. did a better job than us at jumping on pucks or driving the net or getting the loose pucks," Groulx said. "We got to do better at that."

This will be the first time Canada has had to play a quarter-final after changing cities midway through a world junior. Three years ago, it won all four prelim games in Edmonton before moving to Calgary for the medal round and getting beat 6-5 by Russia, which had been at the Saddledome for the first week. It's noteworthy that this time, they had a game at Air Canada Centre.

"We've all been excited to get to Toronto," said captain Curtis Lazar, who was credited with a goal with 10:01 left that opened a 3-1 lead. "Guys have been talking about the atmosphere they had at that pre-competition game (on Dec. 19 against Russia). We're all up for the task. We're playing for keeps now and it's a matter of going out there, making those high-percentage plays and playing for your country."

Drawing Denmark, whose turn as the crowd darling at the ACC is over now, gives Canada a game to adapt to a new building. It also gives it one more game to keep the table open on whether Eric Comrie or Zach Fucale is the No. 1 goalie. The plan all along was to split games between the two. Comrie stopped 42-of-45 shots against Germany and the U.S., while Fucale stopped 39-of-40 from Slovakia and Finland.

"We're not there yet, to be honest," Groulx said after Wednesday's game. "I thought Eric had a solid game. I'm very happy with him, he's a competitor."

Friday's schedule

With Finland beating Germany 2-0 on Wednesday to nab fourth in Group A, here is Friday's schedule.

— Russia (third, Group B) vs. Team USA (2A), 1 p.m. ET, Montreal;

— Finland (4A) vs. Sweden (1B), 3 p.m., Toronto;

— Slovakia (3A) vs. Czech Republic (2B, 5 p.m., Montreal;

— Denmark (4B) vs Canada (1A), 8 p.m., Toronto.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.