HELSINKI – Team USA gets off to a good start in the 2012 World Championship. Kyle Okposo scored two, Max Pacioretty scored one and picked up two assists, Alex Goligoski had two points in the 7-2 win over France.

"The score didn’t really indicate the game. I think they could have had a lot more goals and we could have come up with a few less. It was closer than people might realize," says Team USA forward Bobby Ryan who also scored once against France.

France and the U.S. had played each other seven times previously and only once had France managed to beat the Americans. It was exactly 14 years ago, on May 4, at the World Championship in Switzerland and the score was 3-2.

Since then, the U.S. had four straight wins, including last year’s 3-2 win in Kosice, Slovakia.

"It’s important not to take anybody lightly. When it gets to this level, everyone’s pretty close," said Team USA goaltender Jimmy Howard.

The US had a game plan, and they stuck to it. Today, the streak is five games long.

But it was France who took drew first blood when Yohann Auvitu and team captain Laurent Meunier opened up the U.S. defence, before Meunier dropped the puck back to Nicolas Besch who beat Jimmy Howard with a wrist shot from the slot at 12:17.

"It was a little bit of nerves out there. It’s been a little while since I played for Team USA, so I was a little bit nervous in the first and second but I felt a lot better in the third," Howard said.

It was exactly the kind of start France had wanted to get. Unfortunately for them, Alex Goligoski’s pass hit Kyle Okposo’s tape on the red line, and the French defensemen let Okposo on a breakaway. He faked a shot, then moved the puck to his backhand and beat Cristobal Huet just four-and-a-half minutes after the French goal.

In the second period, France got into penalty trouble which cost them the game. Team USA had three power-play opportunities in the first nine minutes of the period, and they scored twice.

First, captain Jack Johnson beat Huet with a seeing-eye slapshot from the point 3:56 into the period, and then five minutes later, at 9:15, Bobby Ryan redirected Max Pacioretty’s pass from the corner from right under Huet’s nose.

France got back into the game a U.S. penalty. They failed to score on their power play, but just 17 seconds after Kyle Palmieri had returned to the ice, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare somehow got the puck through a scrum in front of the net, and Howard, and made it a one-goal game again.

With just 21.5 seconds remaining on the game, though Huet got beat for the fourth time when Pacioretty deflected Golgoski’s slapshot from the point through his five-hole. Paul Stastny picked up an assist thanks to a clean win in the faceoff circle.

The U.S. crushed the French dreams in the third period, scoring their fifth of the game after a neutral zone turnover sent Palmieri and Jim Slater on a 2-on-1 attack, and Slater one-timed Palmieri’s perfect pass into the net for 5-2.

Okposo got his second of the game with 8:59 remaining when he beat Huet on the shortside with a quick wrist shot from the bottom of the faceoff circle to make it 6-2.

The Americans scored their third power-play goal with a little over two minutes remaining in the game, when Jeff Petry's slapshot snuck through Huet's five-hole to seal the final score, 7-2. Pacioretty and Stastny was credited with assists, third point of the game for Pacioretty, and second for Stastny.

For France, playing the game at noon was perfect preparation for their game against Kazakhstan, on Sunday, also at noon.

"We had tried to adjust to that, we had a lot of skates at that time, and I felt good playing at noon," said Amar.

“Our key game is against Kazakhstan, our next game, but regardless whether we win or lose that one, the tournament’s not over,” he added.

For the Americans, the game against France served as good preparation to the rest of the tournament.

"It’s better for us to take it one step at a time. We got a feel for the big ice in Sweden, and a lot of guys felt uncomfortable with it and the extra width, so it was important that we get a game under our belt in a different situation like this," said Ryan.

Team USA’s next game is against Canada, tomorrow night. RISTO PAKARINEN