Ice Hockey IIHF World Championships 2017

[hckošice 14,787]

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2017

 

 

 

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Preliminary Round

DAY 2

 

Group A
Central European Summer Time (GMT +2)

Slovakia OT3 - 2 Italy
Period-by-Period: 1-0, 0-1, 1-1, OT: 1-0
May 6th 2016, h. 16:15, LANXESS Arena, Cologne

 

Ceresnak saves Slovakia

Italy so close before OT defeat

 

Italy impresses despite a loss on its top-flight return, taking Slovakia to overtime in a lively afternoon encounter in Cologne.

 

Italy returned to the Elite Pool after a two-year absence – and immediately made its presence felt against Slovakia. The Group A outsider was just 64 seconds from claiming victory when Libor Hudacek tied the game at 2-2. Then, in overtime, Slovakia spared its blushes with a gamewinner from Peter Ceresnak to snatch a victory that was cruel on the brave Italians.

 

Ceresnak's goal came in the new-look three-on-three OT format; the D-man found space out on the blue line and flipped a wrister beyond the reach of the screened Andreas Bernard to grab an unlikely Slovak victory.

 

Slovakia's head coach, Zdeno Ciger, was a relieved man after his team recovered to edge the win. "This was a tough game, especially mentally," he said. "We had a very good start in the first part of the period and we scored, but everything changed after that. We had so many shots, but their goalie played really well.

 

"When they scored that second goal to take the lead, that was a really hard time for us. We are thankful for this win."

 

Italy's Giulio Scandella tried to put a positive spin on a disappointing finish. "Our goalie was definitely screened on the goal, he definitely didn't see it," said the forward. "Our confidence grows when we play these bigger nations. When we get that confidence in our game and don't show the other team too much respect, that's when we play our best hockey."

 

Few expected a great deal from Italy in this game, or indeed this competition. Yet, after a shot-shy opening allowed the Slovaks to claim a first-period lead, Stephan Mair’s underdog bared its fangs in the latter half of the game. Giovanni Morini tied the scores in the 36th minute before Luca Frigo tipped home a Scandella shot early in the third to put Italy up.

 

Admittedly, in the early part of the game, Italy seemed intent on meeting those low expectations. Mair’s roster, largely shorn of dual-nationals, relies heavily on young, locally-developed talent. Early on, those players struggled to adapt to the demands of this level of international hockey, seemingly reluctant to cross the red line in a performance that relied on rugged defence rather than offensive intent.

"For the first 10 minutes we gave them too much time in our own end, we played a little scared," said coach Mair. "They came hard and aggressive but the longer the game went on, we adjusted. Our goalie kept us in the game."

 

Bernard's form restricted a leaden Slovakia forward line to a solitary goal. Young defenceman Adam Janosik was the catalyst, seizing the initiative for himself in the seventh minute to surge through centre ice and bang a shot from the left channel into Andreas Bernard’s pads. The goalie allowed a big rebound and Michal Miklik duly swept it up from between the hash marks. Italy almost found an instant response when Alex Lambacher’s no-look pass from behind the net found Daniel Frank, but Julius Hudacek held on from point blank range to preserve his team’s lead.

 

Slovakia continued to hold the edge, with Italy mustering just five shots on goal in the first 30 minutes of play. That brought back echoes of the team’s problems in Minsk when it last graced this stage. Back then, Italy scored just six times in seven games on its way to relegation. But a somewhat careless Slovak penalty changed the flow of this encounter. With Martin Gernat in the box, Italy used its first power play to get a look at life at the other end of the ice. Slovakia killed the penalty, but a couple of minutes later the scores were level. Morini claimed the goal, stuffing home the bouncing puck as it looped off Julius Hudacek following Frigo’s angled shot from out wide.

 

Suddenly this was a different game, and a Slovak team that was also studded with World Championship rookies visibly lost confidence. Early in the final session, Italy scored again: Scandella, one of the wise old heads on Mair’s roster, circled back to a central position before firing a shot into traffic; Frigo got the touch that beat Hudacek and Italy, sensationally, led.

 

"When you get shots from the middle of the ice with guys in front of the net, good things happen," Scandella added.

 

Morini perhaps should have added a third soon afterwards when Scandella found space in the right-hand circle and pushed a tasty feed across the front of the net; the 22-year-old Lugano man couldn’t get a stick to the puck before it slipped to safety.

 

Slovakia sought a response. Miklik came close, but Bernard shut the door at the near post; a time-out with one-and-a-half minutes to play set the stage for a six-man assault. Now Miklik shot again from distance, the rebound went to Libor Hudacek whose effort from a tight angle found the net off Bernard’s chest. Relief for Slovakia, deflation for Italy, which was just 64 seconds from victory.

 

"We could taste those three points near the end," said defenceman Thomas Larkin. "We played stronger as the game went on and it's a shame we only came away with one."

 

 

[hckošice 14,787]

MEN'S

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2017

 

 

 

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Preliminary Round

DAY 2

 

Group B
Central European Summer Time (GMT +2)

Belarus 1 - 6 Czech Republic
Period-by-Period: 0-2, 1-1, 0-3
May 6th 2016, h. 16:15, AccorHotels Arena, Paris

 

 

 

 

 

[hckošice 14,787]

MEN'S

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

2017

 

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Preliminary Round

DAY 2

 

Group B
Central European Summer Time (GMT +2)

Belarus 1 - 6 Czech Republic
Period-by-Period: 0-2, 1-1, 0-3
May 6th 2016, h. 16:15, AccorHotels Arena, Paris

 

Czechs get the W

Belarus falls to 0-2 after 6-1 loss

 

Petr Vrana and Radko Gudas scored in the first to get the Czechs going en route to a convincing 6-1 win over Belarus.

 

The win moves the Czechs to 1-1 while Belarus falls to 0-2. Belarus has yet to beat the Czechs in World Championship play going back to 1998, a skein of eight straight losses.

 

"I think we did a pretty good job on the defensive side of our game," Vrana said. "We were productive up front, too, except for a few moments where we played up and down hockey and gave them a couple of opportunities."

 

The Czechs outshot Belarus by the whopping margin of 45-7. Kevin Lalande was excellent in goal for Belarus before being replaced by Mikhail Karnaukhov with about ten minutes remaining. The game was close until early in the third when Belarus lost all composure and took a series of undisciplined penalties.

 

"We have no excuses," a beleaguered Lalande said after. "It’s frustrating. I don’t have any answers. The Czechs are a good team. They have a lot of skill and some good players who make you pay when you make mistakes. We can’t give them those opportunities. We have to play smart. We have to play in our system. If we don’t do that, it’s going to be 6-1 every night. Our guys better wake up and start playing the right way."

 

The Czechs got on the board first off a nice play. Michal Birner drove down the left wing and watched as Vrana headed for the net. Vrana was covered, but Birner made a perfect pass and Vrana got a stick on it, redirecting the puck past Kevin Lalande at 13:16.

 

"They’re big and strong, and they defend in the neutral zone pretty well," Voracek said. "We were kind of struggling in the first five or seven minutes. Then after Vrana scored that first goal, we settled down a little bit and started playing our game. We were controlling the game the rest of the way."

Indeed, four minutes later, the Czechs doubled their lead with a fortuitous score. Jakub Voracek was checked off the puck, but Gudas was there to blast a long shot on goal. It hit Alexander Kulakov in the slot and bounced crazily past Lalande.

 

Early in the second, though, Belarus got right back into it when Yevgeni Lisovets made a seeing-eye, cross-ice pass to Alexander Pavlovich, who wired a one-timer in at 1:13.

 

The goal awoke the Czechs, though, and they dominated much of the rest of the period. Jan Kovar hit the post, and Birner failed to score on a short-handed breakaway, but at 15:38 they restored their two-goal lead. Roman Cervenka made the pass to Roman Horak. He outwaited a defenceman and then Lalande before calmly roofing a shot. 

 

Belarus had a great chance to get back into the game when it had two early power plays in the third, but those chances went all for naught. The Czechs added to their lead later in the period with a man-advantage opportunity of their own. Radim Simek's point shot went all the way through at 7:26 to make it 4-1.

 

Two minutes later, the Czecha made it 5-1. Pastrnak tried a Forsberg-style deke on a breakaway, stopped beautifully by Lalande, but the rebound came to an unguarded Voracek who fired it in the empty side at 9:37.

 

Kempny added a final goal off a hard wrister with just 16.7 remaining.

 

Both teams have Sunday off. Belarus plays Canada in the early game on Monday, followed by the Czechs and Finns.

 

"It’ll be a tough game," Voracek said, looking ahead 48 hours. "They’re very good skaters. We’ve just got to be patient and not make mistakes, and hopefully we’re going to be good offensively again."

 

 

[Gianlu33 4,528]

I never expect to have 1 points after the match against Slovakia!

 

@hckosice maybe we have sone chance to stay in the 1st group?

[hckošice 14,787]

Results after 1st Period

 

 

Group A in Cologne

Germany - Sweden  1-1 (1-1,-,-)

06:56 Oliver EKMAN-LARSON 0-1

16:14 Patrick HAGER 1-1

 

Group B in Paris

Norway - France  0-0 (0-0,-,-)

[hckošice 14,787]

14 minutes ago, Gianlu33 said:

I never expect to have 1 points after the match against Slovakia!

 

@hckosice maybe we have sone chance to stay in the 1st group?

 

Yep, well, Italy was in fact even extremely close to all 3 points, 64 seconds to the end our team tied the score and send the match to overtime...

 

but well, hard to say anything about your chances, because really, we were just a huge mess today, very very poor, our play was bad really bad. It´s already a mistery how we won 2 points today.

 

Italy played well in the second part of the match, but still I must say that it was also thanks our terrible performance, since the half of the match we showed nothing, If we played against stronger team we would lose by a huge margin..but however, You showed some interesting actions and play, and you have a amazing goalie. If Bernard will keep his form, maybe Italy will surprise more teams and gain more unexpected points during the tournament.

[bestmen 2,807]

i support Germany  and Norway so....do your best

[phelps 7,657]

21 minutes ago, hckosice said:

 

Yep, well, Italy was in fact even extremely close to all 3 points, 64 seconds to the end our team tied the score and send the match to overtime...

 

but well, hard to say anything about your chances, because really, we were just a huge mess today, very very poor, our play was bad really bad. It´s already a mistery how we won 2 points today.

 

Italy played well in the second part of the match, but still I must say that it was also thanks our terrible performance, since the half of the match we showed nothing, If we played against stronger team we would lose by a huge margin..but however, You showed some interesting actions and play, and you have a amazing goalie. If Bernard will keep his form, maybe Italy will surprise more teams and gain more unexpected points during the tournament.

 

wow! we got so close to a real sport's miracle...

and we actually deserved more than we got in the end...

 

and if it wasn't for Hudacek's goal 64 seconds before the final whistle, you got so close to a shameful relegation...

after having watched today's games (SVK-ITA, but also LAT-DEN), I have to admit I'm very worried about your team...I didn't really expect them to live such a nightmare against Italy (even if we played surprisingly well, with a very well organized defence and many effective counter-attacks)...

in particular, I saw too many individual efforts and very few organized set plays from your guys...and I never saw that sense of urgency that every team needs, especially when they find themselves unexpectedly behind in the score...

basically, the opposite of what the Latvian team showed for the entire game...

 

p.s. Bernard today played very well (as he did throughout the entire season in Finland), but his Achilles' heel has always been "consistency"...so, I'm not that confident that he's going to repeat today's performance when it will really count as a do-or-die (the last game against Latvia, at this point...I don't think we can sum up any point against the supposed "big guns" of the group, especially tomorrow against Russia I'm scared we'll get a severe punishment)...

 

however, today it was a very emotional afternoon that I never expected to live...so, thanks Blue Team...in any case!

Edited May 6, 2017 by phelps

[hckošice 14,787]

19 minutes ago, phelps said:

 

wow! we got so close to a real sport's miracle...

and we actually deserved more than we got in the end...

 

and if it wasn't for Hudacek's goal 64 seconds before the final whistle, you got so close to a shameful relegation...

after having watched today's games (SVK-ITA, but also LAT-DEN), I have to admit I'm very worried about your team...I didn't really expect them to live such a nightmare against Italy (even if we played surprisingly well, with a very well organized defence and many effective counter-attacks)...

in particular, I saw too many individual efforts and very few organized set plays from your guys...and I never saw that sense of urgency that every team needs, especially when they find themselves unexpectedly behind in the score...

basically, the opposite of the Latvian team showed for the entire game...

 

p.s. Bernard today played very well (as he did throughout the entire season in Finland), but his Achilles' heel has always been "consistency"...so, I'm not that confident that he's going to repeat today's performance when it will really count as a do-or-die (the last game against Latvia, at this point...I don't think we can sum up any point against the supposed "big guns" of the group, especially tomorrow against Russia I'm scared we'll get a severe punishment)...

 

however, today it was a very emotional afternoon that I never expected to live...so, thanks Blue Team...in any case!

 

I told you that before the tournament and you have not trusted me

we have this year probably, no ! not, wait, no probably, but certainly the weakest slovak ice hockey team we ever used at any tournament.  Likely only 4 maximu 5 players (Hudáček bros, Laco, Miklík and Bližňák) would be in our team composed by our best players. more than a half of this team normally have nothing to do in any national team, the quality is miserable. but unfortunately what can we do, we are a small country and if our best players refuse to play we are chanceless.

 

Trust me you are not alone to be worried, I´m as well, everyone in SVK is..we are very afraid to be relegated, this will be the total end, a painful disaster. Hopefully we will avoid this nightmare, we have now to start think about our REALISTIC possibilities and 100% focus for the match against Denmark, this must be our goal here, nothing else

 

This Italy team is for sure more agreable to watch than the team of 2014 around Ihnačák. Definitely has a future. and Bernard was really amazing. our commentators were in fact clearly frustrated of him

[bestmen 2,807]

germany