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Cole Beaudoin and Brady Martin each scored two goals as Canada beat Finland 7-4 at the world junior hockey championship on Wednesday.
Zain Parekh scored a goal and provided a pair of assists to help his country finish top of Group B at the annual U-20 men's tournament. Tij Iginla scored and added another goal.
Michael Hage, Sam O'Reilly and Caleb Desnoyers each had two assists. Carter George made 14 saves. Beaudoin had an assist and O'Reilly scored on an empty-net three-point play.
Replying for Finland were Rupe Vesterinen with a goal and an assist, Julius Miettinen, Oliver Suvanto and Lasse Boelius. Mathias Vanhanen contributed two assists. Petteri Rimpinen stopped 25 shots.
Canada is now preparing for Friday's quarterfinal showdown with Slovakia. In other matches, Finland will face the United States, Sweden will face Latvia and the Czech Republic will face Switzerland.
The Canadians scored 11 of a possible 12 points in four round-robin matches, the only blemish being a 2-1 overtime win over Latvia. Canada has won seven straight against Finland at the World Junior Championships, with its most recent loss coming in the quarterfinals of the 2019 tournament in Vancouver.
Finnish captain Aron Kiviharju, who played nearly 28 minutes in the 2-1 overtime win over the Czech Republic, missed the match due to illness.
Iginla breaks his tie
Iginla broke a 3-3 tie midway through the second period when he received a long breakaway pass from Parekh on the power play and fired a glove shot.
Baudouin made it 5-3 less than three minutes before the break but the Finns, who had won a 6-3 friendly over Canada in July, responded 35 seconds later when Vesterinen jumped on Keaton Verhoeff's pass and fired a shot past George's right ear.
Baudouin gave his team some breathing room at 6-4 with a second in the third, and Canada cruised out of there on New Year's Eve before O'Reilly's late freeze.
Countries were gunned down during a wild opening at 3M Arena on the University of Minnesota campus.
Parekh scored with the first shot of the game before Miettinen did the same with the Finns' first shot on goal.
Voted the goalkeeper of the tournament last year when Finland lost to the United States in a thrilling OT final, Rimpinen also missed the second shot he faced as Martin scored his first goal 32 seconds later. But Suwanto answered just over a minute later as the countries combined to score four goals on four shots.
Martin made it 3-2 on a power-play rebound before Boelius responded to the Finns' advantage, which came after Canada challenged goaltender interference on George, whose glove was clipped by Joona Saarelainen's stick, as the teams combined to score six goals on 13 shots in just under 12 minutes.
Canada, which lost 4-1 to the United States on New Year's Eve at last year's tournament in Ottawa, is hoping to return to the podium and is eyeing a record 21st gold medal after back-to-back fifth-place finishes, including last year on home soil.
