Taylor Hall led the attack with three goals at Prague’s O2 Arena, while Matt Duchene notched a goal and three assists as the Canadians made it two wins out of two ahead of tomorrow night’s showdown with hosts Czech Republic.

"I think the most important thing is that we played as a team," said Canada’s Claude Giroux.

"We stuck to the game plan.

“That’s one reason we were able to score a lot of goals."

Elsewhere in Group A, Sweden remain undefeated after cruising to a 6-1 victory against Austria, and there was also a win for Switzerland, who bounced back from an opening defeat to beat France 3-1. 

Meanwhile in Group B, Yevgeni Dadonov scored two and assisted two to inspire Russia to a 5-3 success against Slovenia in Ostrava.

Despite the win, Dadonov wasn’t entirely happy with the overall performance of his team.

"It's good that I managed to score a couple of goals but in general we made too many mistakes," he said.

"We need to learn from that."

The other games in Group B saw Slovakia register a second consecutive overtime win, 2-1 against Belarus on this occasion, and Finland get off the mark with a 3-0 triumph at the expense of Denmark. 

The preliminary round action continues tomorrow in Prague and Ostrava with two matches in each group. 

Latvia and Sweden meet in Group A prior to Canada's clash with the Czech Republic, while Russia face United States and Norway play Finland in Group B. 

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