Islanders' John Tavares scores 2 to lead Canada past U.S. in exhibition

OTTAWA, Ontario -- New York Islanders star John Tavares scored twice to lead Canada to a 5-2 victory over the United States on Saturday night in a World Cup of Hockey exhibition game.

Logan Couture, Jay Bouwmeester and Matt Duchene also scored for Canada. Braden Holtby allowed two goals on 13 shots, and Corey Crawford faced 10 shots in 26:28 of ice time.

The U.S. beat Canada 4-2 on Friday night in Columbus, Ohio.

"Obviously, didn't get the result we wanted [Friday]," Tavares said. "Even though it's exhibition, you want to start on the right foot and that's always our expectation, especially when you get a great opportunity to play against one of our rivals back-to-back."

Ryan McDonagh and John Carlson scored for the U.S. Cory Schneider started the game and allowed four goals on 24 shots;Ben Bishop, who came in for the third period, allowed one goal on 14 shots.

Tortorella was OK with his team's performance.

"Quite honestly, I felt we played better minutes [Saturday] than we did [Friday]," U.S coach John Tortorella said. "We'll look at the video and just keep on working on our game."

The U.S. will face Finland on Tuesday night in an exhibition game in Washington, D.C. Canada will complete its pretournament schedule against Russia on Wednesday night in Pittsburgh.

"It was important to get better, and that's what we're trying to do each and every game," Canada coach Mike Babcock said.