SCIARONI'S GOAL LEADS HC DAVOS TO 3-2 WIN OVER CANADA AT SPENGLER CUP

DAVOS, Switzerland – Yanick Lehoux and Canada's team at the Spengler Cup is now going to have to take thelong road to the tournament final.

Gregory Sciaroni's goal midway through the second period held up as the winner as HC Davos edged Canada3-2 on Tuesday. With the victory, Davos (2-0) finished atop Pool B to clinch a semifinal berth.

The loss was the first of the tournament for Canada (1-1), which will face Sparta Prague – the third-placefinisher in Pool A – in quarter-final action Wednesday. The Canadians opened with a 6-1 win over SpartakMoscow on Monday.

Sciaroni put Davos ahead 3-1 at 10:24 of the second before Travis Roche pulled Canada to within a goal at14:15. But the Canadians couldn't get any closer in the third period as Lehoux said trying to beat a Davosteam that plays together all season long was tough.

“The little habits and little instinct plays are easier for them,” Lehoux said. “They're a well-tunedhockey team and when you play against a team like that, it's hard.

“With a one-goal lead like that, they're going to shut it down. It's tough to crack it and we tried. Wehad a couple of chances at the end but couldn't bury it. That's part of hockey, now we've just made it alittle bit harder to go all the way.”

Lehoux finished with a goal and an assist for Canada and took a philosophical outlook on having to playSparta Prague. He said the Canadian team certainly could benefit from having more ice time together.

“Maybe the only thing that we lack is we've never played with each other,” he said. “One extra game canonly be good for us to get our systems down because other than that I don't think we have any holes or haveanything missing on this team.

“It's a really, really good hockey team and we just got to get used to playing with new linemates and newsystems. Once we do that I think we'll be golden.”

Sandro Rizzi and Petr Taticek had the other goals for Davos.

St. Petersburg beat Sparta Prague 4-1 in the early game Tuesday.

Penalties:
   06:05 CAN 8 Joel Kwiatkowski (Tripping)
   13:18 HCD 18 Grégory Sciaroni (Boarding)
   19:36 HCD 69 Sandro Rizzi (Interference)

Penalties:
   04:37 CAN 8 Joel Kwiatkowski (Hooking)
   12:15 HCD 83 Reto von Arx (Delay of Game)
   12:47 HCD 37 Petr Sykora (Delay of Game)
   13:08 HCD 17 Petr Taticek (Delay of Game)
   13:43 CAN 8 Joel Kwiatkowski (Interference)
   19:43 CAN 15 Brett McLean (Tripping)

Penalties:
   01:25 CAN 8 Joel Kwiatkowski (Holding)
   01:25 HCD 13 Peter Sejna (Slashing)
   07:24 HCD 97 Mathias Joggi (Roughing)
   07:24 CAN 28 Mark Bell (Roughing)
   08:07 CAN 27 Josh Holden (Slashing)
   19:47 CAN 50 Glen Metropolit (Holding)