US beats Switzerland 10-1 in world juniors

HELSINKI (AP) Auston Matthews had two goals and two assists to help the United States rout Switzerland 10-1 on Wednesday in the world junior hockey championship.

Matthew Tkachuk added two goals and an assist, and Christian Dvorak, Zach Werenski and Colin White each had a goal and two assists for the United States (2-1-0).

''It's good that everybody's contributing and that was a good finish for us,'' Matthews said. ''They had a game last night that went into a shootout, so I guess we were a little fortunate and took advantage of that.''

Matthews plays for ZSC Lions Zurich in Switzerland, Tkachuk and Dvorak for the London Knights in the Ontario Hockey League, Werenski for the University of Michigan, White for Boston College.

Nick Schmaltz, Ryan Donato and Brandon Carlo also scored, and Alex Nedeljkovic made 27 saves. Schmaltz plays for North Dakota, Donato for Harvard, Carlo for the Tri-City Americans in the Western Hockey League, and Nedeljkovic for the Niagara IceDogs in the OHL.

''We wanted to keep the game as simple as possible as long as possible,'' U.S. coach Ron Wilson said. ''I didn't want anybody to take the puck by themselves and join the parade on the scoreboard. We did try to do something fancy sometimes and do some backhand passes, but it's hard to keep the game plan simple at that point, but we did our best.''

Timo Meier scored for Switzerland (0-3-1).

Earlier, Sweden beat Denmark 5-0 to improve to 3-0 and lock up first place in Group A. Oskar Lindblom, Adrian Kempe, Gustav Forsling, William Lagesson and Alexander Nylander scored, and Felix Sandstrom made nine saves. Denmark is 1-2-0.

In Group B, the Czech Republic beat Belarus 5-3, and Finland topped Slovakia 8-3.

Simon Stransky, Yegor Sharangovich, Jiri Smejkal, Radek Vesely and Dominik Masin scored for the Czech Republic (2-0-1). Belarus dropped to 0-4-0.

Tournament scoring leader Jesse Puljujarvi a goal and three assists to help Finland improve to 2-1-0. Slovakia fell to 1-2-0.