If there were any questions surrounding Canada\u2019s goaltending at Milano Cortina 2026, Jordan Binnington answered them emphatically on Thursday as he stopped 26 shots to earn a 5-0 shutout win over Czechia.<\/p>\n
After backstopping Canada to gold at the 4 Nations Face-Off last year, Team Canada head coach Jon Cooper went back to the St. Louis Blues\u2019 goaltender despite his NHL struggles this season and was rewarded with a dominant performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t predict how things are going to go, but I have extreme confidence in that kid and I have for the past year,\u201d Cooper said of Binnington following Thursday\u2019s win. \u201cHe\u2019s a proven winner to me. I have all the faith in the world in him, and I know our team does. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou still have to go out there and perform and he did just that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Binnington was key early in the victory, making big stops on David Pastrnak and David Kampf in the first period to keep the game scoreless as the teams traded chances in the opening frame.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a strong team. They give me access to see and we did a good job tonight,\u201d Binnington said. \u201cEvery country is good, every country has superstars. We just have to play hard every night from start to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nathan MacKinnon appeared to open the scoring midway through the first but the goal was called back due to a delayed penalty called on Nick Suzuki.<\/p>\n
Teenager Macklin Celebrini opened the scoring with five seconds remaining in the first period and Canada would continue to pour on the pressure, getting goals from Mark Stone, Bo Horvat, MacKinnon, and Suzuki. Connor McDavid had three assists in the victory while captain Sidney Crosby added a pair of helpers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was happy with the way our game progressed. It was unfortunate we got that goal taken back early. We got a big one to get out of the period with five seconds left,\u201d said Cooper. \u201cI thought we got better as this game went on. Hopefully we can keep improving.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defenceman Josh Morrissey left the game in the second period and did not return. Shea Theodore replaced him on the second pairing with Colton Parayko.<\/p>\n
Canada won the last Olympic Games with NHL players involved, claiming gold in Sochi in 2014. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If there were any questions surrounding Canada\u2019s goaltending at Milano Cortina 2026, Jordan Binnington answered them emphatically on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4759,5,4,42978],"class_list":{"0":"post-456216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-olympics-sports-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116060470907855498","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}