** Steve Staios and Duncan Keith form Canada’s third defence pairing. Mike Green is the extra blue-liner, and basically sat on the bench outside of his duties on the top power-play unit.

** Slovenian goaltender Robert Kristan is a real acrobat, and a whopping 60 saves to win player of the game. He sported old-school brown leather pads, throwbacks to the 1980s in size and appearance. His unorthodox style allowed for some unusual goals against, as he struggled with shots in his feet. The Canadian players whacked Kristan’s pads with their sticks as they left the ice, while he was doing his post-game interviews.

** Slovenia did a good job defensively getting their sticks in lanes and breaking up Canada’s pretty passing plays.

** Canada emerged from the first period with a 1-0 lead, but really cranked up the speed and intensity in the second and carried that through to a relatively easy victory.

** The Heatley-Getzlaf-Nash line is simply dominant with its incredible blend of size, strength and skill, and should serve them well against teams like the U.S. and Finland. Heatley had a big game and Nash, who had minor throat surgery a few weeks ago, had some highlight-reel plays that he didn’t finish.

** It was nice to see Slovenia get on the board when Canada got into penalty trouble in the second period. The big underdogs scored on a 5-on-3 midway through the second on a tic tac toe passing play, with Los Angeles Kings star Anze Kopitar providing the finish to the right of Cam Ward.

** Canada took a surprising number of total penalties for a team that is has such a superior roster.

** Martin St. Louis really had his feet going all game, and had numerous chances in addition to his power-play goal --- a shot from just inside the blue line --- in the second.

** Canada is basically running its top two lines as power-play units, with Mike Green-Brent Burns and Ed Jovanovski-Jay Bouwmeester pairings on the point.

** The following were the forward pairings that stood out on the penalty kill: Patrick Sharpe-Jamal Mayers, Derek Roy-Shane Doan and Jason Chimera-Martin St. Louis. The defence pairings basically stayed the same on the kill.

** Anze Kopitar had a terrific chance for his second of the game midway through the third period, but Cam Ward did a great job shutting the door on a breakaway attempt. Moments later, Dany Heatley scored for Canada to make it 5-1. It’s a hat trick for Heatley, but there are no hats to celebrate.

** Ward made 22 saves and was solid.

** The Metro Centre crowd wasn’t very loud.

** Canadian forward Dany Heatley was deservedly player of the game with a hat trick, and he had chances for more, too.