HELSINKI – Dean Kukan and Nico Hischier scored power-play goals and Denis Malgin had two assists as Switzerland defeated Canada 6-3 on Saturday at the world hockey championship.

Michael Fora, Jonas Siegenthaler, Pius Suter and Timo Meier – into an empty net – also scored for the unbeaten Swiss (5-0-0-0) at the Helsinki Ice Hall.

Kent Johnson opened the scoring for the Canadians (4-0-0-1), who suffered their first loss of the preliminary round. Adam Lowry and Drake Batherson had the other goals and Mathew Barzal added two assists.

“The Swiss have been playing well so far in this tournament and they showed it again tonight,” said Canada head coach Claude Julien. “Our special-teams play was not great today. We did not score on the power play. We did not do a great job on the penalty kill and that kind of dug us into a hole.

“We had a five-minute power play that we did not capitalize on and that kind of thing can come back to haunt you later in the game.”

Canada goaltender Logan Thompson made 21 saves. Switzerland outshot Canada 26-25.

“It is always disappointing to lose, but I think in the long run it will be a good learning experience for our team,” Batherson said. “We always want to win every game, but it did not go our way today.”

In other games, Denmark blanked France 3-0, the United States topped Sweden 3-2 in overtime and Finland shut out Austria 3-0.

Italy was scheduled to play Slovakia later Saturday and Norway was to meet Czechia.

Canada will play Denmark on Monday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 21, 2022.