Guhle’s multi-point night helps Canada avoid scare to Austria

MONTREAL – Kaiden Guhle was named Player of the Game for Team Canada in a 7-6 overtime win over Vinzenz Rohrer and Team Austria at the 2024 IIHF World Championship in Czechia on Tuesday.

The Edmonton, AB native and Rohrer, a product of Rankweil, AUT, were the lone members of the Canadiens’ organization in action on Day 5 of the championship.

Guhle earned a goal and an assist in the game for his third and fourth points of the tournament. The Habs defenseman now has points in three straight appearances for Canada.

Rohrer was held off the scoresheet in 12:18 of ice time.

Here’s a brief summary of the game:

CANADA 7 – 6 AUSTRIA (OT)

Guhle, Andrew Mangiapane and Dylen Cozens connected in the opening frame to start the scoring for the Canucks.

P1 06:34 [1]-0 Cozens (Mangiapane, Guhle*)

Less than three minutes later, the Montreal defenseman buried his first goal of the tournament off a feed from John Tavares.

P1 09:21 [2]-0 Guhle (Tavares, Hagel)

Bowen Byram, Jared McCann, Connor Bedard and Pierre-Luc Dubois added markers for the Canadians, making it 6-1 through two periods of play.

The Austrians didn’t go away, however. Benjamin Baumgartner, Peter Schneider (2), Dominic Zwerger and Marco Rossi stormed back with five unanswered goals in the third period to tie the game and force overtime.

Fifteen seconds into the extra frame, Tavares scored to secure the extra point for Canada.

With the win, Canada improved their record to 11-0-1 (W-L-T) all-time against Austria at the IIHF World Championship.

What’s next?

As far as Habs players and prospects go, only Juraj Slafkovsky and Team Slovakia are in action on Wednesday. The Slovaks clash with the Poles at 2:20 p.m. ET at Ostrava Arena. The game will be broadcast on TSN4 and RDS.

Cover photo: Andrea Leigh Cardin/IIHF