U.S. beats Canada 4-1 on New Year's Eve at world juniors

Danny Nelson scored the winner in the third period and Trey Augustine made 38 saves as the United States beat Canada 4-1 on Tuesday to take Group A at the world junior hockey championship.

Cole Hutson and Cole Eiserman added a goal and an assist each for the Americans. Ryan Leonard scored into the empty net.

Bradly Nadeau replied for the undisciplined tournament hosts, who allowed three goals on seven U.S. power plays. Carter George stopped 24 shots.

Canada, which is looking to build on its record 20 gold medals after a disastrous fifth-place showing at last year's tournament, finished third in the pool and will face the Czech Republic in Thursday's quarterfinals. The Americans get Switzerland.

The other matchups will see Group B winners Sweden take on Latvia, and Finland square off with Slovakia.

Canada and the U.S. played in the same building exactly 16 years to the day at the 2009 event when John Tavares scored a memorable hat trick in the hosts' 7-4 comeback victory on New Year's Eve. The Canadians would eventually go on to win a fifth straight gold.

The North American neighbours met on New Year's Eve for the first time since Dec. 31, 2016, when Canada picked up a 3-1 victory in Toronto, but the U.S. got revenge less than a week later with a 5-4 shootout triumph in the title game in Montreal.

Canada opened this year's under-20 tournament with a 4-0 defeat of Finland before suffering a shocking 3-2 shootout loss to Latvia and registering a nervy 3-0 victory over Germany. The U.S. thumped Germany 10-4, topped Latvia 5-1 and fell 4-3 to Finland in overtime.

The Canadians had a power play to start the third period down 1-0 after Leonard took a roughing call at the end of the second and didn't have anything going on until Nadeau blasted a one-timer for his first of the tournament off a Brayden Yager feed at 1:58.

Nelson restored the U.S. lead at 4:22 after taking a pass from Huston and firing his third past George.

Canada went back to the man advantage, with 17-year-old Gavin McKenna rattling the iron behind Augustine just as the penalty expired.

The Americans hit the post on another power play with less than 10 minutes to go in regulation when Leonard found iron for a second time in the game.

The U.S. scored its third power-play goal of the night at 13:21 when Eiserman riffled his second to put the game out of reach at 3-1 after a boarding penalty by Canada's Easton Cowan.

Leonard scored into the empty net with 1:52 left in regulation to spark chants of "U-S-A! U-S-A!" from their small pockets of fans in the quickly emptying rink.