Canada begins World Junior knockout round against Slovakia tonight on TSN

The real work is about to begin for Team Canada at the World Junior Championship.

It wasn’t always smooth, but Canada picked up wins in each of their preliminary-round games to finish atop Group A at this year’s tournament in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. They will begin the knockout round Friday night against Slovakia in the quarter-finals.

Watch the matchup LIVE at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT across the TSN Network, on TSN.ca and the TSN App with pre-game coverage beginning 30 minutes prior.

Canada is heavily favoured against the Slovaks, but if the past few tournaments are any indication, Canada could have its hands full.

The Canadians were eliminated in back-to-back quarter-finals in each of the past two tournaments by Czechia, including last year on home soil in Ottawa. The 2026 team has spoken plenty about wanting to make up for the disappointing last couple years.

Canada outscored opponents 25-11 and picked up 11 of a possible 12 points in group play, with their only hiccup coming on Dec. 27 when they needed overtime to get past Latvia.

Dale Hunter’s team delivered what may have been their most complete effort in a win over Finland to close out the preliminary round on New Year’s Eve, getting two goals apiece from Brady Martin and Cole Beaudoin in a 7-4 win.

Canada’s Gavin McKenna, Zayne Parekh and Michael Hage are all tied with Slovakia’s Tomas Chrenko for the tournament lead in points with eight. But filling the stat sheet isn’t what Canada came to do.

“A big thing we’ve talked about in meetings is that at the end of the tournament there’s not going to be a photo of one person up on the wall,” Canada captain Porter Martone said via TSN’s Mark Masters.

“It’s a team photo when you win a gold medal. At the end of the day, points don’t matter with this group. We’re a very unselfish group, and we’re all fighting with each other to win a gold medal.”

Canada appears set to make a change in net, as Jack Ivankovic was the first goaltender off the ice for the team’s morning skate Friday.

Carter George has started three of four games at this year’s tournament but has a .844 save percentage with 10 goals allowed. Ivankovic’s only action came against Latvia on Dec. 27, where he stopped 26 of 27 shots in a 2-1 overtime victory.

Since Canada finished atop their group, they draw a Slovakia team that finished fourth in Pool A. Slovakia’s only win came against Germany on Dec. 27 but the Slovaks held their own against top competition, dropping all three of their other games by just one goal, including narrow losses to Group A winner Sweden and a U.S. team stacked with talent.

This is third meeting between Canada and Slovakia in the World Junior quarters. The Canadians were up against the ropes in their most recent matchup in 2023 when Connor Bedard rescued the red and white with a highlight-reel overtime goal that gave Canada a 4-3 win in a tournament where they eventually won gold.

They’ve met two other times in the quarters in 1997 and 2020, with Canada winning easily each time. All time at the World Juniors, Canada has 16 wins and one tie in 17 meetings against Slovakia.

Canada-Slovakia will be one of five World Junior games Friday on TSN. Below is a game-by-game schedule of the action.