With Matt O'Connor not dressed for the game due to the injury he sustained in Friday's game, Chris Driedger stepped up and made 43 saves to lead the baby Senators to a 1-0 victory over the baby Pens in London, Ont.
For the second game in a row, amateur tryout candidate Stephen Harper was the lone Senators to beat the opposing goalie, and he has accounted for 100% of the Senators' offense so far this weekend and is making a case for an invite to the Senators' main training camp.
The win evens the Senators record at 1-1 heading into this afternoons game against the baby Habs, who are also 1-1 following a 1 goal loss to the Leafs on Saturday. It will be a battle for second place in the tournament, as the Leafs lead with a 2-0 record and have beaten both teams head to head that could end up in a tie should the Pens beat the Buds tonight.
Driedger will get the start again for the Sens, with O'Connor being ruled out after there were hopes after Friday's game that the injury was minor enough to allow him to start Sunday.
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Day 1 of the World Cup provided some shock and awe results.
The Shock came during the Team Europe/Team USA game where the underdog Europeans made the most of their 17 shots, beating Jonathan Quick on 3 of the first 9 directed at him. Jaroslav Halak took care of the rest, with an outstanding 35 save performance that put the Americans on their heels and created unrest with some former USA hockey members, most notably Jeremy Roenick who was critical of the team and its performance. Maybe they were looking forward too much to the anticipated showdown with Canada and overlooked the Europeans, who didn't look very good at all in the exhibition period and snuck away with a win in the opener.
The Awe came in the nightcap where Sidney Crosby showed Conn Smythe form in leading Canada to a meticulous 6-0 win over the Czech Republic. Knowing what happened to the Americans earlier in the game, and knowing that anything can happen in a short tournament like this, the Canadians didn't give the Czechs a chance to really feel like they were ever in the game. Add to that a couple of early saves by Carey Price showed that he was in form and was going to be difficult, if not impossible to beat as he continued his dominate while wearing the Maple Leaf.
It was a near perfect night for Canada, with the line of Crosby, Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand doing what Mike Babcock put them together to do. Each scored a first period goal, they were a combined +9 and accounted for 7 points between them. Canada was 62% on faceoffs, were 2 for 3 on the power play and 6 for 6 on the penalty kill.
The Canada-US game Tuesday night will be interesting because if Team Europe beats the Czechs on Monday afternoon the US would be eliminated with a loss to Canada.
Today Group B takes the stage, with the Swedes taking on Russia in the matinee and North America playing Finland in the night-cap.