MILAN (AP) — Macklin Celebrini scored Canada's first goal in the return of the NHL to the Olympics and Jordan Binnington stopped all 26 shots he faced in a 5-0 defeat of Czechia on Thursday that showed the tournament favorite is already a well-oiled machine.
Celebrini, his country's youngest player at 19, deflected a shot by Cale Makar past Lukas Dostal with 5.7 seconds left in the first, putting an exclamation point on a terrific, back-and-forth period.
After Mitch Marner's saucer pass to Mark Stone for his goal and Bo Horvat's on a breakaway later in the second, Czechia never stood a chance.
The handful of times Binnington got tested, he was there to make the save. Before Celebrini scored, Binnington kept it 0-0 by making a left-pad stop on Michal Kempny and reaching out to smother David Kampf's rebound attempt.
At the other end of the ice, Dostal played well but was helpless to slow down much of the onslaught. There was nothing he could do on the Sidney Crosby to Connor McDavid to Nathan MacKinnon tic-tac-toe power-play goal in the third period.
The same trio combined for almost the same goal in opening game of the 4 Nations Face-Off a year ago. Canada won that Olympic appetizer by beating the U.S. — which opens Thursday night against Latvia — in overtime.
McDavid had three assists, including one on Nick Suzuki's goal that made it 5-0.
Adding NHL talent to a group that made a deep run in an international tournament last spring, Switzerland opened the Olympics with a statement victory against France.
Timo Meier of the New Jersey Devils scored twice in the third period, 39-year-old national team goaltender Leonardo Genoni stopped all 27 shots he faced and Switzerland shut out France 4-0 on Thursday. Damien Riat scored 55 seconds in, J.J. Moser of the Tampa Bay Lightning made it a two-goal lead three minutes in and there wasn't much to worry about the rest of the way.
“It helps you a lot if you score two in the first, whatever it was, five minutes,” Moser said. "It just gives you a little bit more comfort, more confidence also for the rest of the game.”
The goals by Meier put the game out of reach after he and his teammates tilted the ice toward Keller. Meier called it “a mature performance there how we put the game away.”
With a boisterous contingent of fans in attendance, Switzerland outshot France 43-27 and sent them home happy.
A part of that was the play in net of Genoni, the 38-year-old who backstopped his country on an improbable run to the final at the world championships last spring before losing 1-0 to the U.S. in overtime. Genoni, who was tournament MVP with a 0.99 goals-against average and 0.953 save percentage, wasn't sweating getting a shutout and is more worried about the rest of the Olympics.
“It’s a great start,” Genoni said. “We had a really, really good start into the game and could shut the door behind. It’s a perfect start for us.”
Switzerland next plays Canada on Friday.
“Obviously a big team coming up," forward Nino Niederreiter said. "We’re going to try our best to poke the bear a little bit and see if we can go from there.”
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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
