Ice Hockey 2015 - 2016 Discussion Thread

[hckošice 13,217]

SCHEDULE

DAY 2

Saturday, May 7th, 2016

 

 

12:15 (GMT +3)

PRELIMINARY ROUND - GROUP A

 

Switzerland vs Kazakhstan

Referees:  Roman GOFMAN (RUS), Brett IVERSON (CAN)

Linesmens:  Nicolas CHARTRAND-PICHE (CAN), Vit LEDERER (CZE)

Line Ups Link, Ice Palace, Moscow

 

 

12:15 (GMT +3)

PRELIMINARY ROUND - GROUP B

 

Slovakia vs Hungary

Referees:  Timothy MAYER (USA), Marc WIEGAND (SUI)

Linesmens:  Roman KADERLI (SUI), Judson RITTER (USA)

Line Ups Link, Yubileiny, St. Petersburg

 

 

16:15 (GMT +3)

PRELIMINARY ROUND - GROUP A

 

Norway vs Denmark

Referees:  Stefan FONSELIUS (FIN), Tobias WEHRLI (SUI)

Linesmens:  Henrik PIHLBLAD (SWE), Peter SEFCIK (SVK)

Line Ups Link, Ice Palace, Moscow

 

 

16:15 (GMT +3)

PRELIMINARY ROUND - GROUP B

 

France vs Germany

Referees:  Martin FRANO (CZE), Antonin JERABEK (CZE)

Linesmens: Jon KILIAN (NOR), Sakari SUOMINEN (FIN)

Line Ups Link, Yubileiny, St. Petersburg

 

 

20:15 (GMT +3)

PRELIMINARY ROUND - GROUP A

 

Latvia vs Czech Republic

Referees:  Jozef KUBUS (SVK), Aleksi RANTALA (FIN)

Linesmens:  Alexanser OTMAKHOV (RUS), Nikolaj PONOMARJOW (GER)

Line Ups , Ice Palace, Moscow

 

 

20:15 (GMT +3)

PRELIMINARY ROUND - GROUP B

 

Belarus vs United States

Referees:  Linus OHLUND (SWE), Konstantin OLENIN (RUS)

Linesmens: Nicolas FLURI (SUI), Miroslav LHOTSKY (CZE)

Line Ups, Yubileiny, St. Petersburg

 

 

 

* The streams will be geo-blocked in some countries.

** Referees and Line-Ups will be announced usually 3-4 hours before the first match, will be added in the schedule later.

[hckošice 13,217]

TEAM PRESENTATIONS

  Switzerland

 

 

        Home

 

       Away

Swiss go local

No Canadian coach, but results expected

 

El Nino led a magical run in 2013, but can Nino Niederreiter take the Swiss to the gold-medal game (or bronze, even) again?

 

 

 

The Swiss won only two of eight games last year, and that poor showing cost Glen Hanlon his job. This year, the team is a blend of age and youth looking to rebound under a new – and Swiss! – coaching staff. The team has four NHLers to complement a roster of Swiss-league players, but one is never quite sure which Swiss team will show up on any given day.

 

Goal

 

Colorado Avalanche goaltender Reto Berra is back. He played in five of eight games last year but didn’t post a single win all tournament. This is his fifth straight World Championship, though, and he will be given the lion’s share of the work in goal this year. Last year’s third goalie, Robert Mayer, is also on the team as well as newcomer Sandor Zurkirchen, whose only experience in IIHF tournaments was the 2008 U18 Worlds.

 

Defence

 

Yannick Weber of the Vancouver Canucks will anchor the defence along with several familiar faces in the form of Eric Blum, Raphael Diaz, Felicien Du Bois, Patrick Geering and Robin Grossmann. But coach Fischer has also added three new players: Christian Marti, a 23-year-old who played at the 2011 U18 Worlds and the 2012 and ’13 World Juniors and Noah Schneeberger, who has played for HC Davos the last four years..

 

Forward

 

Although the players are familiar, so is the problem – scoring. Last year the Swiss qualified for the quarter-finals thanks to wins over Austria, 4-3, and Germany, 1-0. They scored just 12 goals in seven games. The other quarter-finalists in their group scored 49, 34, and 27 goals, highlighting the disparity in offence. In the playoff game they lost to the U.S., 3-1. Damien Brunner led the team in points last year with only five, and he’s not here in Moscow due to an injury he suffered in the Swiss finals. No player scored more than two goals. This year, it’s up to the likes of Andres Ambuhl, Sven Andrighetto, among others, to put the puck in the net. Fortunately, Nino Niederreiter is back. He was instrumental in that silver-medal run in 2013, so hopefully he can work his magic again.

 

Coaching

 

Patrick Fischer is the first non-Canadian to coach the Swiss since Simon Schenk in 1997. Ralph Krueger got the team back into the top division the next year, and Sean Simpson, more famously, took the team to the gold-medal game in 2013. But a disappointing 8th-place result with Glen Hanlon last year got the Swiss to thinking about their own, and who better than Fischer, a 40-year-old who had a long and successful career with the team as a player and who was an assistant to Simpson three years ago? The catch, though, is that he is on a short leash. Qualify for the quarter-finals, and his contract is automatically renewed for two years. Fail to do so, and, well, things are less certain. He will be assisted by two other former Swiss stars, Felix Hollenstein and Reto von Arx.

 

Projected Results

 

The Swiss can certainly be grouped with Czech Republic, Russia, and Sweden more favourably than Denmark, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Norway. As a result, that quarter-finals placing looks pretty good. But winning that key elimination game against a top-eight opponent has generally proved difficult for the Swiss, so a middle-of-the-pack finish might be the expected result from Russia. 2016.

 

 

[hckošice 13,217]

Final Results

 

A

Switzerland - Kazakhstan  2-3 after GWS  (1-0, 0-1, 1-1, OT: 0-0, GWS: 0-1)

14:56 Samuel WALSER 1-0

30:57 Roman SAVCHENKO 1-1

50:30 Roman STARCHENKO 1-2

52:01 Denis HOLLENSTEIN 2-2

winning shoot out by Nigel DAWES 2-3

 

B

Slovakia - Hungary  4-1  (2-1, 1-0, 1-0)

07:07 Tomáš MARCINKO 1-0

13:30 Frank BANHAM  1-1

17:43 Tomáš JURČO 2-1

35:09 Andrej SEKERA 3-1

57:43 Patrik LUŠŇÁK 4-1

[bestmen 2,555]

why don't they accept the drawn in ice hockey , they always play the overtime

[hckošice 13,217]

3 minutes ago, bestmen said:

why don't they accept the drawn in ice hockey , they always play the overtime

 

Becuse the tie breaker in Ice Hockey is the head to head confrontation, if 2 or more teams has the same number of points, we use the head to head confrontation to rank them and for this each match must have a winner.

[hckošice 13,217]

Switzerland - Kazakhstan  2-3 (GWS)

 

 

 

 

 

[bestmen 2,555]

Juste maintenant , hckosice a déclaré:

 

Becuse the tie breaker in Ice Hockey is the head to head confrontation, if 2 or more teams has the same number of points, we use the head to head confrontation to rank them and for this each match must have a winner.

ah ok thx new rule for me ,  they don't do that in football in the first round

[hckošice 13,217]

“Canakhstan” stuns Swiss

Dawes goals in shootout the difference

Kazakhstan's Roman Savchenko #2 celebrates a second period goal against Switzerland with Dustin Boyd #41, Alexander Lipin #46 and Brandon Bochenski #27 during preliminary round action at the 2016 IIHF Ice Hockey Championship.

 

 

Nigel Dawes scored twice in the shootout to give Kazakhstan a stunning 3-2 win over Switzerland to start the World Championship for both teams.

 

Dawes scored in the round-robin portion with a great deke to his right and then in the sudden-death with an equally great deke left to give Kazakhstan three goals to Switzerland's two in the penalty-shot shootout. It was the first win for the Kazakhs in WM history against the Swiss after three losses.

 

"It's an historic moment for us," goaltender Vitali Kolesnik said jubilantly after the game.

 

Ironically, Dawes missed a penalty shot in the first period as well.

 

"I was a little frustrated with my penalty shot in regulation," Dawes admitted. "I kinda rushed it, and I wanted to be more patient in the shootout. He's a big goalie; he takes up a lot of the net, so I wanted to get him moving, and I did that. It was good to kinda redeem myself."

 

The win spoiled the first game at the World Championship for incoming Swiss coach and former national Patrick Fischer, but the result was a great start for the North American-born forward line of Kazakhstan made up of Canadians Dawes and Dustin Boyd, and American Brandon Bochenski.

 

The first four players of the shootout all scored and the last two missed, and in the first round of the sudden death Dawes scored again. Goalie Vitali Kolesnik didn't even have to make a save for the win as Lino Martschini, who also scored in the round robin, lost control of the puck and didn't even get a shot.

 

The Kazakhs got the first great chance of the game midway through the opening period. Dawes was hooked from behind on a clear break and awarded a penalty shot, but he blasted a shot wide with the free shot to keep the game scoreless.

 

A few minutes later the Swiss scored two quick goals, but only the second counted. Sven Andrighetto ripped a shot over the glove of Vitali Kolesnik at 14:21, but video review showed a teammate in the crease, nullifying the score.

 

Undaunted, the Swiss continued to press, and 35 seconds later they were awarded with a goal that stood. Raphael Diaz took the puck around the Kazakh net and tried to stuff it in the far side. Kolesnik made the stop, but the puck came right to Samuel Walser who eluded a check from Ilya Lobanov to swat the puck in.

 

The second period was as entertaining a period of hockey as you are about to see early in a big tournament. Kolesnik was the early star, making several big saves to keep it a 1-0 game, notably on a Swiss power play.

 

Then, at 10:57, Roman Savchenko tied the game on a goal as bizarre as Vladimir Koat’s against Tommy Salo at the 2002 Olympics. Playing short-handed, the Kazakhs intercepted the puck at their blue line. Savchenko rifled a long shot down the ice that floated like a knuckleball, eluding Reto Berra some 120’ away.

 

Berra made up for the gaffe a little later, robbing Vadim Krasnoslobodtsev from in close with a right-pad save. 

 

The Kazakhs stunned Switzerland by taking the lead at 10:30 of the final period during a four-minute power play after a Felicien de Bois high-sticking call. On a nice give-and-go from in close, Yevgeni Rymarev fed captain Roman Starchenko in front, and Starchenko snapped a quick shot over Berra's glove.

 

Less than two minutes later, though, the Swiss tied the game on a man advantage of their own when Denis Hollenstein poked his own rebound past Kolesnik from a bad angle. It was not the kind of goal to give up at such a critical moment of the game.

 

That set the stage for overtime and Dawes's heroics in the shootout.

 

Both teams are right back at it tomorrow. The Kazakhs play Russia in the early game while Switzerland plays Norway in the afternoon.

 

[hckošice 13,217]

Slovakia - Hungary  4-1

 

 

 

 

[hckošice 13,217]

Slovakia opens with a win

Jurco goal at end of first period seals it

Slovakia's Tomas Jurco #13 celebrates with Libor Hudacek #79 after scoring Team Slovakia's second goal of the game during preliminary round action at the 2016 IIHF Ice Hockey Championship.

 

 

Slovakia faced a plucky and tenacious competitor in Hungary but were able to withstand the challenge.

 

Led by Tomas Jurco and Andrej Sekera, Slovakia held on for a 4-1 win over Hungary in the opening game on the second day of the IIHF World Championships at Yubileiny Arena.

 

Jurco’s goal in the closing minutes of the first period would be the difference maker. After going scoreless in five games at the 2015 World Championships, Jurco's game winner was his first ever senior men's goal.

 

Jurco, Sekera and Martin Marincin all has two points each in the game.

 

Hungary was competitive in their first appearance in seven years in an IIHF top division World Championship game. Hungary made a game of it and fan support in the arena certainly helped. Hungarian fans were in attendance offering full-throated enthusiasm for their team in this opening game at Yubileiny Arena in St. Petersburg.

 

"It was not an easy game." Martin Reway said. "We didn’t expect that, but of course we should have played better. Especially in the third period, we focused only on the defence. It’s not a good effort, I think."

 

Despite being called for a tripping penalty very early on, Hungary was aggressive on the kill. Balint Magosi had a shorthanded chance but couldn’t quite tee up the puck. 

 

Still, the Slovaks had the most quality chances in the period and were able to get on the scoreboard first.

 

Tomas Marcinko scored for the Slovaks at 7:07. Vladimir Dravecky sent a shot on goal that was saved but off the rebound and with the traffic in front, the puck bounced around like a ping pong ball finally landing on Marcinko’s stick for the put away. 

 

Slovakia may have had the best chances in the period but Hungary got a few of their own.

 

Tomas Hrnka took an interference penalty at 12:19 when he wiped out Bence Sziranyi. The play occured as Hrnka was near the Slovak bench coming off a shift.

 

On the power play, Istvan Bartalis rushed the puck into the Slovak zone, behind the net looking for a wraparound. The puck rebounded off Branislav Konrad’s pads in the slot to Vilmos Gallo whose shot hit Frank Banham’s skate and in. 

 

The Calahoo, Alberta born Banham leveled the game and further ignited the crowd. As a junior player in 1995-96 Banham scored 83 goals for his junior club the Saskatoon Blades, which was the most of any player in North America or Europe.

 

Jurco enjoyed a strong game, perhaps his best in his limited World Championship play. He had a scoring opportunity with five minutes remaining but Miklos Rajna was there to stop him. Two and a half minutes later, Jurco converted an Andrej Sekera slapshot with a redirection that found the back of the net.

 

Sekera scored off a give and go with Jurco to give Slovakia a two goal lead and it stood there until Patrik Lusnak added an empty net goal in the final two minutes with Hrnka adding an assist. The goal came with 2:17 remaining in the period. 

 

Though they tried, Hungary could not get another goal to bring them back in the game. Rajna was admirable in goal in dealing with the skilled Slovakia attack. 

 

For his effort on the day, Sekera was named Slovakia's best player of the game. Gallo would take those honors for Hungary.

 

Slovakia hopes to maintain their winning ways when they take on France tomorrow. Hungary deals with yet another challenge, also tomorrow, when they face Canada.

 

After the post game on ice ceremony and Slovakia left the ice, Hungary was treated to their many fans in attendance singing the national anthem. It was a demonstration of the love and respect Hungarian fans have for their team.

 

"Our fans do that for us whether we win or lose." said team captain Marton Vas. "It is a proud nation and I think we have their support all the time and especially the way we played tonight. They don't care about the result, they are happy to see us working hard and giving all we've got in these games."