Ice Hockey IIHF World Championships 2017

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UNDER 20 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

2017

 

 

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Relegation Round Game 1

Finland - Latvia  2-1

 

 

 

 

 

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Relegation Round Game 1

Finland - Latvia  2-1

 

Finns win relegation opener

Latvians keep it tight thanks to goalie Mitens

 

Kristian Vesalainen broke a third-period tie as Finland edged Latvia 2-1 to kick off the best-of-three relegation series in Montreal on Monday.

 

Vesalainen's long shot with 11 minutes left deflected in off defender Deniss Smirnovs, and the Finns celebrated with relief.

The underdog Latvians allowed a tournament-worst 29 goals in four group stage games, but hung tough here to keep this one close. Finland outshot Latvia 45-24, and Latvian starting goalie Marek Mitens was tremendous.

 

Like Latvia, the snake-bitten Finns scored six goals in group play, also a tournament low. The Finns won gold at last year’s tournament in Helsinki, and originally expected to compete in the quarter-finals. However, they opened with three regulation losses to the Czechs, Danes, and Swedes, and were doomed to the relegation round after Switzerland’s 5-4 shootout win over Denmark.

In a surprising move, coach Jukka Rautakorpi was fired before Finland's game against Switzerland and replaced by Jussi Ahokas, who coached Finland to U18 gold in April.

 

Game Two goes Tuesday at the Bell Centre. Game Three is Thursday (if necessary).

 

Villi Saarijarvi also scored for Finland. Maksims Ponomarenko replied for Latvia.

 

The Latvians came out aggressively, but the Finns soon picked up the tempo. Near the five-minute mark, Henrik Borgstrom and Juuso Valimaki hit posts back-to-back. At 7:43, Saarijarvi stepped in from the point on the power play and wired a high wrister past Mitens for a 1-0 lead.

 

Midway through the first period, Mitens made a nice in-close save off Julius Nattinen off the rush. He also foiled Janne Kuokkanen, who split the Latvian defence and tried to sift a backhand through the five-hole. Finland outshot Latvia 21-11 through 20 minutes and could easily have led by more, with two late power plays.

Latvia tied it up at 4:37 of the second period. Ponomarenko's shot from the blue line whizzed past Finnish goalie Veini Vehvilainen's glove. It was the first goal of the tournament for the 19-year-old defenceman, who plays for Lorenskog IK in Norway.

Next, it was Finland's turn to parade to the penalty box, but Latvia couldn't find the go-ahead goal, even with a long 4-on-3 man advantage.

In the third period, Nattinen and Joona Luoto misfired on a great odd-man rush chance near the six-minute mark. Shortly after Vesalainen's go-ahead goal, Mitens grabbed an Eeli Tolvanen shot that nearly trickled over the goal line with 8:13 left.

The Latvians got one final gasp with 12 seconds left when Aapeli Rasanen was sent off for cross-checking Eduards Tralmaks in the Finnish zone. But even with Mitens pulled for the extra attacker, they couldn't cash in.

Finland is the first defending World Junior champion in history that has had to play relegation games. The Finns’ previous worst tournament finish was seventh (2000, 2009, 2013, 2015).

Newly promoted Latvia is playing in its sixth elite World Juniors since 2006. The Latvians managed to avoid relegation twice before, in 2009 and 2012.

 

[Finnator123 292]

Well, victory is still a victory

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Quarterfinal

Denmark - Russia  0-4

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Quarterfinal

Denmark - Russia  0-4

 

Russia on to semis

Danes couldn’t overcome centre-ice goal

 

 

Russia scored two goals in the first period—including one from centre ice—to defeat Denmark 4-0 and advance to the semi-finals in Montreal on Wednesday.

 

Captain Kirill Kaprizov had two goals for the winners and now leads the tournament in goals (7) and points (10).

 

Ilya Samsonov had an easy time in goal, stopping only 14 mostly harmless shots in the Russian cage for the shutout.

 

The Danes had plenty of chances on the power play but went 0-for-6.

 

"It's a bad thing we took so many penalties," defenceman Sergei Zborovski said, "but we watched a lot of video before the game to try to improve our penalty killing. We blocked a lot of shots and didn't give them many chances."

 

This marked the third straight year Denmark has stayed in the top pool of the U20, the third time Denmark has qualified for the quarter-finals, and the third year these two teams have faced each other.

 

In 2015, the Russians needed a shootout before winning, 3-2 in the round robin, and last year the game went to overtime before the Russians prevailed, 4-3 in the quarters.

 

"I'm very proud of our team," said coach Olaf Eller. "We had a phenomenal tournament, but today we didn't get the bounces we've gotten in previous games. I think we made a bit more progress this year than last year and the year before."

 

"We made history in the round robin," enthused Christian Mieritz, "and for a small country like Denmark to compete here with huge hockey countries is amazing."

 

Although the Danes came out and played a decent first half of the period, the game changed on a terrible blunder from goaltender Lasse Petersen. Alexander Polunin got the puck just inside his side of centre ice. He took a couple of strides and flicked a long shot in on goal. Petersen lost sight of it, and the puck floated into the top corner at 8:45.

 

"It was a lucky goal," Zborovski agreed. "But after that we started to play better and controlled the play in their zone more."

 

"That wasn't the reason we lost," Mieritz said in support of his goalie. "We had a lot of chances after that and we didn't score. Lasse has been excellent for us. Unfortunately, that was one shot he should have saved, but that's how it is."

 

Denmark had two power plays to get a goal, and although it had some decent movement it couldn’t capitalize. Russia had a late man advantage of its own—and connected with only 10.9 seconds left on the clock.

 

Mikhail Vorobyov fired a nice pass from behind the net to Kaprizov in front, and Kaprizov’s quick shot snuck under Petersen’s glove on the short side for a commanding 2-0 lead.

 

Coach Olaf Eller swapped Petersen out and Kasper Krog in to start the second, but the damage had been done. The middle period was one dominated by the penalty killers. The Danes took a double minor and then minor in quick order, leaving them a man down for six minutes in a row, but they did a great job of keeping the Russians at bay. 

 

Later, the Danes had two power plays but failed to generate any dangerous shots.

 

"They packed together in front of the net," Mieritz noted of the Russian strategy. "We just couldn't get any shots at the goal. We should have done more, but we didn't." 

 

The Russians added an insurance marker at 7:12 of the third when Denis Guryanov fanned on a shot in the slot. The puck came right to Pavel Karnaukhov, and he drilled a shot past Krog for a 3-0 lead.

 

Kaprizov put an accent on the win at 15:35. He walked out from the corner and drilled a shot over Krog's shoulder.

 

And now the Russians will play the winner of tonight's United States-Switzerland game on Wednesday. One thing is for certain, Zborovski said: "We have to have a better start. We have to be ready and play hard the whole game."

 

[hckošice 13,535]

Thanks god this nightmare is over..logical result, absolutely deserved win for Sweden, the difference is sadly too big. too much, this years team was very weak, lets not hide the true, their only goal was avoid the relegation, thankfully they managed to beat Latvia ad maintains the place also for the next years team, hopefully we will have a better and more competitive team, we also must say that this year we had many younger players, some of them will also play this years under 18 world championships, and hardly believable that those younger players were our best in this tournament so at least we can consider it as a slim hope for brightest next year(s) edition(s).

 

Congrats Sweden, perfect play, perfect team full of fantastic skilled players, I´m sure more than half of this team will be huge NHL stars already in the near future.

 

okay have to sleep a bit now, so pics, recaps and highlights will be send tomorrow

[ahjfcshfghb 286]

We tried. We seem to be matching ourselves very well with the stronger teams. I definitely don't think we should be ashamed, but there's a lot to work on. The medal will come someday.

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2017

 

 

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Quarterfinal

Sweden - Slovakia  8-3

 

 

 

 

 

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Quarterfinal

Sweden - Slovakia  8-3

 

Swedes subdue Slovaks

Sweden makes semis, Asplund gets four assists

 

Sweden took a 3-0 first-period lead and pounded Slovakia 8-3 in the early Montreal quarter-final. Captain Joel Eriksson Ek and Tim Soderlund each scored twice.

 

On Wednesday, the Swedes will battle the Canada-Czech Republic winner in the semi-finals.

 

Swedish scoring leader Alexander Nylander and Fredrik Karlstrom chipped in a goal and an assist apiece. Carl Grundstrom and Lias Andersson also scored for Sweden. Rasmus Asplund had four assists and Oliver Kylington had two helpers. The Swedish power play clicked three times.

 

Except when coach Tomas Monten's team let its guard down at the end of the second period and the start of the third, Swedish goalie Felix Sandstrom had a quiet afternoon compared to Slovakia's Adam Huska. Shots favored Sweden 50-18.

 

"We got the start we really wanted," said Monten. "It was a similar start like in the last game against the Czechs. We wanted to get the speed going, create pressure and chances. We played a great first period."

Martin Bodak, Miroslav Struska, and Adam Ruzicka scored for Slovakia.

"We just couldn’t keep up with the Swedes," said Slovak coach Ernest Bokros. "They skated better and were better one on one. The shot advantage speaks for the Swedish team."

 

The Swedes, who came fourth the last two years, are hoping to top the podium for the first time since 2012 in Calgary. Their only other gold medal came in 1981 in West Germany. They haven’t medaled since settling for silver at home in Malmo in 2014.

"I remember the feeling last year," said Eriksson Ek."I don’t want to have that feeling again. I hope we can step up a little bit more and win the hockey games."

 

At the 2015 World Juniors in Toronto, the Slovaks earned a surprising bronze thanks to Best Goaltender and tournament MVP Denis Godla. It was their second World Junior medal of all time, following 1999’s bronze in Winnipeg. However, they’ll head home empty-handed in 2017.

"I think this year was pretty hard for Team Slovakia because we had a really hard group with Canada, the USA, Russia and Latvia," said Slovak captain Erik Cernak. "But we’re staying in the [top] division, and we beat Latvia. I think that was really important for Team Slovakia."

Sweden took just 1:08 to strike first with the man advantage. After a faceoff win in the Slovak end, Eriksson Ek accepted a pass from Asplund and snapped it from the right circle over Huska’s glove.

 

The Juniorkronorna kept coming. Huska foiled Jonathan Dahlen, who had a hat trick versus the Czechs, on his backhanded breakaway attempt. Eriksson Ek picked off Cernak’s pass up the middle and zinged one off both posts. Gabriel Carlsson also tasted iron with a point shot.

 

Soderlund, an 18-year-old from Skelleftea, gave Sweden a 2-0 lead at 16:28 with blazing right-wing speed, beating Slovak defenceman Martin Fehervary wide and cutting in to fire it home. It was the World Junior rookie's first goal at this level.

"I got a pass from Andreas Wingerli from the middle, and I broke in and shot," said Soderlund.

 

Just 33 seconds later, Grundstrom made it 3-0 when the Swedes won an offensive-zone faceoff and he roofed one from the right faceoff dot. When the horn sounded, Sweden was outshooting Slovakia 20-5.

Sweden got an early second-period power play when Struska hit Asplund from behind into the boards. Asplund was shaken up, but kept on plugging.

Nylander put Sweden up 4-0 at 7:13, taking Dahlen's cross-ice pass from below the goal line and squeezing the rebound past Huska's right skate. At 13:07, Filip Ahl took an open-ice hit to make a play, finding Karlstrom unguarded in front of the Slovak goal, and his high backhand gave Sweden a five-goal edge.

The Slovaks woke up with a pair of late second-period goals. Bodak spoiled Sandstrom's shutout bid on the power play at 15:48. At 16:54, Struska, standing in front, deflected in Cernak's point shot. Sandstrom barely denied a fired-up Struska and Ruzicka on a flurry of chances just before the buzzer.

"We played really well in the second period," said Cernak. "We scored two goals. If we played the same game all game, that would have been good."

At 1:53 of the third, Ruzicka eluded Andersson's checking as he swung out in front of the Swedish net and wrapped the puck through Sandstrom's pads to cut the deficit to 5-3.

But that was as good as it would get for the Central European underdogs, who will finish eighth for the third time in six tries under Bokros.

"It was a bit shaky when they scored their goal there, but we’re a really calm group," Kylington said. "We talked a lot in the bench. There wasn’t any panic. I think we handled it pretty good."

In the third period, Soderlund ended Slovakia's comeback hopes at 2:24, stickhandling in the slot before zipping a wrister past Huska's blocker to make it 6-3.

"It was an important goal for us," said Asplund. "We got back the energy and they got a little bit low after that."

Andersson scored Sweden's seventh goal from behind the net on the power play at 4:27. Eriksson Ek rounded out the scoring with the man advantage, converting a rebound with 2:56 left.

For Slovakia, at least the final score was an improvement on last year's 6-0 quarter-final loss to Sweden in Helsinki. The Swedes have won 11 straight World Junior quarter-finals. Their last quarter-final loss was 1-0 to Finland with Tuukka Rask in goal on 2 January, 2006 in Vancouver.

Slovakia's three best players of the tournament were honoured post-game: Adam Huska, Erik Cernak, and Martin Fehervary.

 

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UNDER 20 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

2017

 

 

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Quarterfinal

USA - Switzerland  3-2