from Scott Burnside of ESPN,

At one point during Canada’s 3-2 overtime victory over Russia in the teams’ final pre-World Cup of Hockey tune-up match, a reporter walked past, and given Canada’s play, wondered why the other teams were even bothering to play the tournament.

His point was well taken. Even though the score was just 1-0 in their favor at the time, when Canada plays as well as they were playing at that moment -- and, really, when they play as well as they did for all but a few minutes on Thursday night -- it’s hard to imagine any team in the eight-team field being able to beat them.

Indeed, this Canadian team, building off their run to gold in Sochi in 2014, have become masters at dominating close games.

They won’t necessarily blow opponents out of the water on the scoreboard, but they do it in a way that might be even more disheartening by slowly but surely squeezing the life out of opposing teams.

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Watch the Getzlaf OT winner below...