MacKinnon scores twice as Canada beats Austria 5-1 at ice hockey worlds

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Nathan MacKinnon scored two goals to lead Canada to a 5-1 victory over Austria at the ice hockey world championship on Thursday.

The Colorado Avalanche center also had an assist to help move Canada atop Group A with Sweden. Both teams have 4-0 records and 12 points.

Travis Konecny and Will Cuylle scored and added an assist each for Canada, Sidney Crosby also scored and defenseman Brandon Montour had three assists. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 15 shots in net.

With Canada 1-0 down, MacKinnon took care of the comeback in the middle period. He started the rally 1:59 into the frame, scoring from the top of the left circle just eight seconds into a power play.

MacKinnon one-timed a slap shot to put Canada 2-1 ahead with 6:50 remaining when the referee was signaling a penalty and Canada pulled Fleury for the extra attacker.

“He’s a really good player, competitor, really good habits off the ice and on the ice as well," Cuylle said about linemate MacKinnon. “Just trying to learn what he does and see if I can take a little bit of something from him. I liked the way we bounced back in the second.”

Konecny added the third 8:32 into the final period, knocking in a cross goal pass from Cuylle. Konecny fed Cuylle with 8:18 left to roof a slap shot to make it 4-1.

Crosby completed the win with his second goal at the tournament with 1:33 remaining.

Vinzenz Rohrer gave the Austrians a 1-0 lead 11:20 into the game on a breakaway. It was only the second goal Canada conceded in its four games.

Austria goaltender Florian Vorauer made 23 saves in the first period.

Austria has two points from four games played.

In Herning, defending champion Czech Republic cruised past newcomer Hungary 6-1 to take the Group B lead with 11 points.

David Pastrnak led the Czechs with two goals and an assist. Jakub Flek, Petr Kodytek, Ondrej Beranek and Lukas Sedlak also scored.

Earlier in Herning, Sven Andrighetto scored four goals to lift Switzerland to a 5-1 victory over Germany.

Switzerland is second in Group B with 10 points. Germany is in third after registering its first loss.

After Damien Riat opened the scoring 4:25 into the middle period, Andrighetto needed a span of 9:04 to complete a hat trick and build a four-goal lead in the frame.

He added with his fourth — and second on a power play — in the final period.

Swiss goaltender Leonardo Genoni made 21 saves.

Following problems with the quality of the ice in Herning, organizers extended the time for breaks between the periods from 15 to 17 minutes.

On Tuesday, play had to be suspended in the opening period of a game between Germany and Norway and again in the middle period due to a hole in the ice.

In Stockholm, Finland routed Slovenia 9-1 to move to the third place in Group A with eight points. Slovenia remains without a point. Eeli Tolvanen scored four goals for Finland.

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

Canada's Adam Fantilli, center, plays the puck during the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship group A match between Canada and Austria in Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency via AP)

Canada's Will Cuylle, front in action during the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship group A match between Canada and Austria in Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency via AP)

Canada's Nate MacKinnon, left, and Austria's Gregor Biber, right, challenge for the puck during the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship group A match between Canada and Austria in Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency via AP)

Canada's Nate MacKinnon, left, and Austria's Gregor Biber, right, challenge for the puck during the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship group A match between Canada and Austria in Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency via AP)

Finland's Finland's Eeli Tolvanen, left, celebrate after scoring his side's seventh goal during the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship group A match between Finland and Slovenia in Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency via AP)

Switzerland's scorer Damien Riat, right, and his teammate Simon Knak, left, celebrate the opening goal during the IIHF 2025 World Championship group B match between Switzerland and Germany in Herning, Denmark, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

Switzerland's Sven Andrighetto, second right, celebrates after scoring his side's third goal during the IIHF 2025 World Championship group B match between Switzerland and Germany in Herning, Denmark, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — An Iranian Kurdish separatist group in Iraq said it has launched attacks on Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in recent days in retaliation for Tehran’s violent crackdown on protests.

Members of the National Army of Kurdistan, the armed wing of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, or PAK, have “played a role in the protests through both financial support and armed operations to defend protesters when needed,” Jwansher Rafati, a PAK representative, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Iranian media has previously accused the group and other Kurdish factions of attacking security forces.

Iranian activists say more than 2,797 people were killed in the government’s crackdown on a recent wave of nationwide protests.

A handful of Iranian Kurdish dissident or separatist groups — some with armed wings — have long found a safe haven in northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, where their presence has been a point of friction between the central government in Baghdad and Tehran.

Iran has occasionally launched strikes on the groups’ sites in Iraq but has not done so since the outbreak of the recent protests.

The PAK is the first of the groups to claim armed operations since the protests and crackdown began.

“When we found out that the IRGC was shooting protesters directly, our fighters in Ilam, Kermanshah, and Firuzkuh responded with armed operations and inflicted significant damage on the regime’s forces,” Rafati said in an interview in Irbil, the capital of northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region.

The PAK has also claimed a number of attacks online and posted video of what it said were operations against IRGC targets, sometimes accompanied by grainy videos showing gunshots or explosions and buildings ablaze. The AP was not able to confirm the extent of the damages or the impact of the attacks.

Rafati said the attacks were launched by members of the group’s National Army of Kurdistan military wing based inside Iran. The group had not sent any forces from Iraq, but it anticipates that Iran may strike PAK bases in Iraq in retaliation for its operations, he added.

He said the PAK has been providing support to dozens of Iranians who fled to the Kurdish area in Iraq since the crackdown on protests began.

The PAK claims may put Iraqi authorities in a sensitive situation with Tehran — which wields significant influence over its neighbor — concerning the group's ongoing presence in northern Iraq.

Iraq in 2023 reached an agreement with Iran to disarm Kurdish Iranian dissident groups and move them from their bases near the border areas into camps designated by Baghdad. The bases were shut down and movement within Iraq was restricted, but the groups have remained active.

During the Israel-Iran war last year, the PAK and other Kurdish dissident groups began organizing politically in case the authorities in Tehran should lose their hold on power but did not launch armed operations.

A PAK spokesperson told the AP at the time that premature armed mobilization could endanger the Kurdish groups and the fragile security of Kurdish areas, both in Iraq and across the border in Iran.

A decade ago, PAK forces received training from the U.S. military when they were taking part in the fight against the Islamic State militant group after it swept across Iraq and Syria, seizing large swathes of territory.

Ironically, the PAK at the time found itself allied with Iran-backed Shiite Iraqi militias that were also fighting against IS.

At that time, the PAK received funding from Iraq's Kurdish regional government, but says now that most of its funding comes from its supporters in Iran and the diaspora.

During the recent protests, Iranian state media has repeatedly referred to the demonstrators as “terrorists” and alleged they received support from America and Israel, without offering evidence to support the claim.

Iranian state television aired what appeared to be surveillance video of a group of men wearing the baggy pants common among the Kurds, firing pistols, in Iran’s western Kurdish region. It has also published images of seized weapons in the area.

The semiofficial Tasnim news agency, which is close to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, said Kurdish groups including the PAK “have played an active role in inciting these movements by issuing coordinated statements and messages.” It said that “groups based in northern Iraq have passed the stage of psychological warfare and media operations and have entered the field phase.”

The semiofficial Fars news agency, which is also close to the Revolutionary Guard, reported on Jan. 10 that another group — the Kurdistan Free Life Party, or PJAK — had killed eight Guard members in Kermanshah and that a PJAK sniper killed a police officer in Ilam province. PJAK has not claimed any armed operations during the protests.

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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report. Sewell reported from Beirut.

This image made from video shows the representative of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, Jwansher Rafati, speaking during an interview with The Associated Press, in Irbil, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Farid Abdulwahed)