TORONTO

Canada was not at its best. And it was still good enough.

Brad Marchand and Steven Stamkos scored in the first period and the Canadians cruised to a 3-1 win over Team Europe in Game 1 of the World Cup of Hockey finals on Tuesday night.

Game 2 of the best-of-three series is Thursday night.

Patrice Bergeron’s goal midway through the third period created a two-goal cushion.

Carey Price finished with 32 saves for the Canadians, who have won two straight Olympic gold medals and 15 consecutive best-on-best hockey games since losing to the U.S. at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

In most of those wins, they were much more dominant.

Slovakia’s Tomas Tatar scored his third goal in two games seven minutes into the second period to get Europe within one.

Jaroslav Halak, who is also from Slovakia, stopped 35 shots for the unique team made up of eight European nations outside of the continent’s traditional powers.

The Canadians were playing at home, but didn’t seem to get much of an emotional boost in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ arena, where there were a lot of empty seats and suites.

Price had to make three saves and face a power play in the first 21 seconds of the game.