2017-18 National Men's Team

RAYMOND SCORES TWICE, CANADA TAKES THIRD AT SOCHI OPEN

JASON LA ROSE

SOCHI, Russia – Mason Raymond (Cochrane, Alta./SC Bern, NLA) had a pair of goals, including a lacrosse-style game-winner in the third period, helping Canada’s National Men’s Team to a 3-1 win over Metallurg Magnitogorsk on Wednesday and third place at the 2017 Sochi Hockey Open.

With the game tied four minutes into the third period, Raymond scooped the puck onto the blade of his stick, stepped out from behind the net and tucked it over the shoulder of goaltender Vasily Koshechkin to put Canada up for good.

Raymond did the honours on the first goal of the game, taking a behind-the-net feed from Andrew Ebbett (Vernon, B.C./SC Bern, NLA) and going short-side on Koshechkin for the 1-0 marker midway through the first period.

Sergei Tereshchenko got Magnitogorsk even seven minutes into the second, hammering a one-timer past Canadian netminder Justin Peters (Blythe, Ont./Dinamo Riga, KHL) and sending the game to the intermission at 1-1.

After Raymond gave Canada back the lead, Justin Azevedo (West Lorne, Ont./Ak Bars Kazan, KHL) hit the empty net with 44 seconds remaining, icing the victory.

The Canadian staff will now head to St. Petersburg, Russia, to meet a new group of players for the Tournament of Nikolai Puchkov. Canada is on the ice for the opener on Aug. 14, taking on KHL side Jokerit Helsinki (8 a.m. ET/5 a.m. PT).