Vancouver Giants forward Cameron Schmidt was named player of the game for Canada after he scored two goals in a span of 4:07 to help Canada to a dominant 5-1 win over Slovakia on the second day of the 2024 Hlinka Gretzky Cup on Tuesday night, Aug. 6.
Schmidt opened the scoring under four minutes into the contest when he banged home a rebound off a point shot from Tri-City Americans defenceman Jackson Smith.
With exactly 12 minutes remaining in the first period, Caleb Desnoyers (Moncton Wildcats) fed Schmidt a tremendous pass on the power play from behind the net that Schmidt one-timed home to make it 2-0 for Canada.
Luca Romano (Kitchener Rangers) scored to make it 3-0 for Canada early in the second period, though the Slovaks responded with a goal of their own several minutes later off the stick of Michal Svrcek.
Canada put the game to bed midway through the third period with two goals in a span of seven seconds: first 脡mile Guit茅 (Chicoutimi Saguen茅ens) finished off a pretty passing play on a the man advantage to make it 4-1, just moments before Romano got his second of the game to make it 5-1.
Canada outshot Slovakia 44-28 in the game and went 2-for-4 on the power play.
Giants prospect Tobis Tom铆k 鈥� who was named the captain of Slovakia 鈥� also played in Tuesday's contest and had a couple of chances. Tomik scored in Slovakia's tournament opener on Monday in a 4-3 overtime loss to Sweden.
Next up for Schmidt and Canada is a date with Sweden to close out the round robin on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Rogers Place.
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