Canada kicks off quarterfinal against Slovakia at men's worlds on TSN
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Canada emerged as the winner of Group A in the preliminary round of the world hockey championship after racking up five regulation wins and a pair of overtime victories.
They now progress to the elimination round of the tournament, starting with a battle against Group B's Slovakia on Thursday.
Led by Buffalo Sabres forward Dylan Cozens, who has scored in each of the team's past six games - including two goals in each of their past two games - and leads all tournament scorers with eight goals, Canada finished their preliminary round without a loss.
Canada ran into a little trouble against Austria and host Czechia, as they needed overtime to knock off both opponents.
Their final three games of the preliminary round were against the three other teams to advance to the elimination stage - they came back from a two-goal deficit to beat Finland 5-3 on Saturday, and rallied in the third period for a 3-2 come-from-behind victory over Switzerland on Sunday.
They allowed Czechia to fight back from a 3-1 deficit with two late goals before Cozens scored the overtime winner on Tuesday for a 4-3 victory.
Slovakia, meanwhile, started their tournament strong with victories over Germany and the United States. They finished the preliminary round with consecutive losses to Latvia, 3-2 in a shootout, and a 6-1 drubbing at the hands of Sweden, who finished atop Group B.
Slovakia's overall record in the seven games of the prelims was 3-1-1-2, good enough for 12 points and the final advancement spot in Group B.
Cozens leads Canada in points with 10, followed closely by captain John Tavares, who has one goal and seven assists after seven games.
Libor Hudacek has led the way for Slovakia, with five goals and nine points. The status of Martin Pospisil will be critical for Slovakia - the Calgary Flames forward has three goals and seven points, but departed their game against Sweden with a shoulder injury after an awkward crash into the boards.
Slovakia also features arguably the tournament's top goaltender to this point, as Samuel Hlavaj has posted a goals against average of 1.93 and a tournament-leading save percentage of .939.
One important factor in the clash will be special teams: Canada's penalty kill has been among the worst in the tournament through the preliminary round, allowing five goals on 24 penalties for a 79 per cent rating, good for 10th of 16 teams.
On the other side, Slovakia's power play ranked worst in the tournament in prelims. They scored once on 23 tries with the man advantage for a dismal 4.3 per cent success rate.