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Canada wins World Cup of Hockey

 
Published Sept. 30, 2016

TORONTO — Brad Marchand scored a short-handed goal with 43.1 seconds left and Canada beat Europe 2-1 on Thursday night to win the World Cup of Hockey.

"It's the biggest stage in the world right now, and it's an incredible honor," Marchand said.

The Canadians, including the Lightning's Steven Stamkos, won the best-of-three final 2-0.

Patrice Bergeron tied it with a power-play goal with 2:53 left in the third, and his Bruins teammate Marchand won it with a shot from the slot.

Europe seemed as if it had a chance to score late when Kings defenseman Drew Doughty was called for high-sticking with just under 2 minutes left, but Canada was the team that took advantage when Marchand got the puck into open space and beat Halak with a shot to win the first World Cup since 2004.

"It's just crazy the way everything worked out," said the Penguins' Sidney Crosby, selected the MVP of the tournament after scoring three goals and finishing with a World Cup-high 10 points. "When you get a penalty that late in the game, you're just trying to force overtime."

Canada has won 16 straight games in so-called best-on-best tournaments, including Olympic gold medals in 2010 and 2014, since losing to the United States in the preliminary round of the 2010 Olympics.

"It's pretty special," Crosby said. "It's not easy to do and for a good chunk of us, a lot of us were there in Russia."

The Canadiens' Carey Price made 32 saves for the Canadians, who started slow before ending the tournament with a furious rally that fired up a once-quiet crowd.

Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara scored early for Europe, and Islanders goalie Jaroslav Halak made 32 saves for the team made up of players from eight countries that didn't have their own teams in the eight-team tournament.