FIRST PERIOD
 
** Latvia fans are loud, as expected. Canadian fans respond with some decent noise of their own, giving former Halifax Mooseheads goaltender Pascal Leclaire a nice cheer in his first start at the Metro Centre since 2001.
 
** Canada gets on the board with two goals in the opening 3:45. One comes from fourth-liner Patrick Sharpe on a rebound, and another comes on a great individual effort from blue-liner Mike Green, who led the NHL in defence scoring this year. Green pinched in from the point and scored on a nifty deke while turning to his side.
 
** Green is pinching like a mad-man, as he did with the Washington Capitals in what was a breakthrough year. He’s actually the team’s seventh defenceman, but head coach Ken Hitchcock is running him on even-strength shifts with either Jay Bouwmeester or Ed Jovanovski, who are usually together on the No. 1 pairing.
 
** The early goals have quieted the normally rowdy Latvian fans.
 
** Dany Heatley ripped a one-timer past Edgars Masalskis at 12:15. He’s got four goals  in two games in the tournament already, shaking off an atrocious scoreless slump of 10 games with the Ottawa Senators to end the NHL season.
 
** Canada had two power-play chances and couldn’t convert.
 
** Mikelis Redlihs had Latvia’s best chance with 2:06 to go in the period, skating between the circle and rifling a shot that Leclaire had to be sharp on.
 
** The shot clock after the first period red 13-10 for Canada. Leclaire didn’t face many scintillating scoring chances, but he showed his mental poise in turning away a couple of shots that could have fooled him if he hadn’t been alert.
 
SECOND PERIOD
 
** This Nash-Heatley-Getzlaf thing is getting ridiculous. Heatley has been doing most of the scoring so far, but he just fed a streaking Nash, who buried a well-placed shot behind Masalskis to make it 4-0 just 63 seconds into the second.
 
** Jason Spezza just made a sweet feed from behind the goal line that landed on the stick of a wide-open Martin ...[next page]