Russia suffers first lost, Latvia bounces back

Day four of the IIHF World Championship saw an uncharacteristically sluggish Russian performance end in a 1-3 loss against Slovakia. That’s a first loss of the tournament for Valery Bragin’s team and sees the Slovaks move clear at the top of Group A. The Czech Republic got its first win of the championship in the evening game, edging Belarus in overtime. Latvia briefly went to the summit in Group B after a 3-0 win over Italy but was overtaken by Germany as Canada lost again.

Group A

Slovaks take top spot

Slovakia 3 Russia 1 (0-0, 1-1, 2-0)

In a tournament full of surprises, this was Russia’s turn to suffer an unexpected loss. Both teams went into the game looking to extend their winning starts to three games, but Russia’s results had been more convincing than Slovakia’s. However, a hard-working team performance managed to slow Russia’s offense — which had 11 goals in its two previous games — and the Slovaks took their chances at the other end to take the win.

Photo: 24.05.21. 2021 IIHF World Championship. Slovakia - Russia

Russia announced the imminent arrival of three players — Washington goalie Ilya Samsonov and defenseman Dmitry Orlov, plus St. Louis forward Vladimir Tarasenko — but for today’s game Valery Bragin had to contend with the absence of Mikhail Grigorenko. The gamewinner against the Czech Republic was suffering a slight injury but is expected to be available again before long. Evgeny Timkin took Grigorenko’s place.

Slovakia also made changes. First-choice goalie Bronislav Konrad did not recover from the injury he sustained in yesterday’s game against Great Britain and Julius Hudacek continued. In addition, two teenagers, Simon Nemec and Juraj Slafkovsky, were healthy scratches as Craig Ramsay looked for more experience on his team.

In its previous games, Russia started strongly and got ahead in the first period. This time, though, it was a sluggish performance as the Red Machine labored early on.

“I don’t think we started well today,” admitted forward Vladislav Kamenev. “You could say we were a bit sloppy. But them we found our rhythm, started playing better and created plenty of chances but could not score them.”

Along the way, defenseman Ivan Provorov caught the eye with an unorthodox ‘header’ to clear his lines after a point shot looped up into the danger zone.

“Their defenceman shot from the blue line, the puck went up in the air and I could see their player on the slot,” he said. “I couldn’t use my hand, so I just had to react as best I could and get it away with my head.”

Slovakia went in front midway through the second period through Milos Keleman’s first of the tournament. The Russian defense struggled to clear its lines and Anton Burdasov was stripped of the puck in his own zone by Milos Roman. Play came back to Keleman in the deep slot and the 21-year-old fired past Alexander Samonov. Keleman, who had two KHL games with Slovan Bratislava in 2018--2019, marked his World Championship debut with a goal.

Almost immediately Russia hit back with a power play goal. Anton Slepyshev sent the puck out from behind the net for Sergei Tolchinsky’s one-timer from the dot and a deflection off Alexander Barabanov took it past Hudacek in the Slovak net.

It was a straightforward move, in contrast with much of interplay that has characterized Russia’s hockey here in Riga and, for Provorov, that’s no bad thing.

“We sometimes need to keep it simple,” he added. “We need more simple passes, we needed to get more traffic in front of the net. We don’t have to score the perfect goal every time, we can just get pucks to the net and look for rebounds.”

Slovakia regained the lead with 6:41 to play in the third period. The goal came on a power play, with Martin Gernat’s point shot taking a deflection off Artyom Shvets-Rogovoi’s skate and looping over Samonov’s glove. And the game was settled when captain Marek Daloga, once of Ak Bars, Slovan and Kunlun Red Star, scored into the empty net.

The decisive goal came with Maxim Shalunov sitting out a penalty, an unwelcome reprise of some of the needless fouls he committed during the Gagarin Cup final series. In addition, he is yet to score in Riga. However, head coach Bragin supported his player.

“It’s an on-going conversation with every player,” he said. “We need them to bring their best qualities to the party each game. This time, it happened that Shalunov took a penalty, we need to see whether it was a real penalty or whether only the officials saw it that way. It’s not easy to explain why he isn’t scoring goals, but we hope that soon we will see his best hockey and he’ll start finding the net.”

While Russia ponders what comes next, Slovakia celebrated. And none more than Hudacek, well-known in Russian hockey.

“It’s a special game for me because I know everyone on Team Russia,” he said. “Their GM was my GM at Spartak, I worked with the goalie coach at Spartak. This is a big win for me, but more importantly for the team. I’m happy that we won today, it was no accident. We played better than Russia, skated well, held the puck and created chances.”

Belarus 2 Czech Republic 3 OT (0-0, 1-2, 1-0, 0-1)

An overtime winner from Dominik Kubalik cost Belarus as the Czech gained their first points of the championship. After two successive losses, the Czechs were under pressure to perform here, but Belarus pushed them all the way.

The opening goal came early in the second period when Yegor Sharangovich got his second of the tournament. However, the Czechs hit back to lead at the intermission thanks goals from Jan Kovar and Filip Zadina.

But this is a fragile Czech team, and Belarus showed its spirit 24 hours earlier in the win over Sweden. Dinamo Minsk youngster Vladislav Yeryomenko tied the game midway through the third and the Bison had chances to win it in regulation and in overtime.

However, the last word went to Kubalik who raced away to convert a Robin Hanzl feed 83 seconds into the extras.

Stanislav Lopachuk, who had an assist on the tying goal, admitted afterwards that he had mixed feelings.
“We had our chances in overtime, right up to their goal,” he said. “We could have finished the game off. On the other end, we had to fight back in regulation. We’ve got mixed feeling, we were close to winning. But anyway, it’s not a bad result for us. The big thing was that after yesterday’s game we showed it was no freak result.”

Group B

Host nation goes to the top

Latvia 3 Italy 0 (0-0, 1-0, 2-0)

Latvia moves to the top of Group B after defeating Italy in Arena Riga. After a tournament full of unexpected results, the host nation needed to make sure it did not fall victim to another shock following its loss against Kazakhstan on Saturday.

And there was no mistake this afternoon. Goalie Ivars Punnenovs blanked the Italians as Latvia recorded its second shut-out in three games. At the other end, Martins Karsums scored twice, either side of a Lauris Darzins tally.

However, it took time to seal the win. The game was scoreless until midway through the second period, and Darzins made it 2-0 in the 59th minute to seal the deal for the host. However, the outcome might have been more comfortable were it not for three disallowed Latvian goals.

Karsums, who is rejoining Dinamo Riga next season after a year in the DEL, said: “We feel pretty good. These points matter to get us into the quarter-finals and we need to play good, better than today and in the game before.”

Third loss for Canada

Germany 3 Canada 1 (2-1, 0-0, 1-0)

Canada remains winless after three games of this World Championship, with Germany continuing its perfect start in Riga.

Two quick goals midway through the first period put the Germans in control thanks to Stefan Loibl and Matthias Plachta, but Canada struck back with a Nick Paul goal just before the intermission.

But Germany stayed strong and frustrated the Canadians before Korbinian Holzer, who played last season with Avtomobilist, wrapped it up with an empty-net tally.