World Championship: Latvia beats Kazakhstan, Austria stuns Canada
Unfancied Austria produced a historic fightback from 1-6 to force overtime against mighty Canada in Prague. Although the defending champion snatched the winner in the extras, avoiding total humiliation, this game will be remembered as one of Austria’s greatest performances. Elsewhere, Latvia beat Kazakhstan 2-0, Stephane Da Costa had two points as France won against Poland, and Norway came out on top in the Scandinavia battle against Denmark.
Group B
Kazakhstan 0 Latvia 2 (0-0, 0-2, 0-0)
Latvia posted its third successive victory of the World Championship, with Kristers Gudlevskis making 22 saves to shut out Kazakhstan.
The Kazakhs, who began their campaign in Ostrava with an encouraging 3-1 win over France, have now suffered back-to-back losses. Following France’s win over Poland in Tuesday’s late game, it’s starting to look like the meeting with the newly-promoted Poles might be a survival showdown for Galym Mambetaliyev’s team.
For Batyrlan Muratov, the frustration was obvious.
“We had a lot of chances in the first period, especially on our power play,” Muratov said after the game. “Then in the second we had a few three-on-one breakaways. Their goalie played well and at times the puck just wouldn’t bounce for us.
“Fortune was on Latvia’s side today.”
Kazakhstan shaded the first period but ran into trouble in the second. Midway through the game Roberts Bukarts put Latvia ahead. Then, in the 36th minute, Metallurg’s Valery Orekhov saw his lofted clearance cut out at the blue line and Haralds Egle advanced to slot home a second goal.
After that, despite a golden chance for Nikita Mikhailis late in the game, Gudlevskis and his defensemen closed down Kazakhstan’s offense.
“We need to play much better than today in all aspects,” admitted Leonid Metalnikov. “We need more aggression on offense, to create better chances, and we have to cut out those schoolboy errors on defense.”
Poland 2 France 4 (0-2, 2-2, 0-0)
This was one of the games that Poland was targeting to get the points it needs to prolong its top-flight return. After an impressive and unexpected point from the opening game against Latvia, the Poles suffered a 1-5 loss to Sweden. France had a similar record, beaten by Kazakhstan before taking Latvia to OT.
Today, Les Bleus took the initiative early on. Poland was held to just three shots in the first period, while the French grabbed two goals. Justin Addamo got both of them, putting his country on top.
When Stephane Da Costa scored on the power play early in the second, France was in cruise control. The Avtomobilist man assisted as Pierre-Eduoard Bellemare added a fourth, but late in the middle stanza Poland hit back. Dominik Pas and Bartosz Fraszko found the net to make it 4-2 at the intermission.
The third period brought no further goals. Poland battled hard, but France had the know-how to close out the game and claim a win that could go a long way to securing its place in the elite for another year.
Group A
Denmark 0 Norway 2 (0-0, 0-1, 0-1)
Norway picked up a valuable win over its Scandinavian neighbor and moves level with the Danes on three points.
After a first period of few chances, the Norwegians stepped up their game in the middle stanza. The reward came in the 29th minute when the Thoresen-Zuccarello partnership set up youngster Michael Brandsegg-Nyland for the opening goal.
That was all that separate the teams until the final seconds, when Eirik Salsten’s empty-netter sealed the win.
Canada 7 Austria 6 OT (3-1, 3-0, 0-5, 1-0)
In more than 7,000 games in top level IIHF play, no team had ever recovered a five-goal deficit. Until tonight.
Yet unfancied Austria, down 6-1 to defending champion Canada, pulled off a sensational third-period fightback in Prague in a game that will surely be remembered for years to come.
When Canada powered to that huge advantage – with Connor Bedard getting his fifth goal in three games – it felt like a question of how many. But Austria had other ideas.
A fast start to the third period brought goals from Benjamin Baumgartner and Peter Schneider. Austria had never scored three on Canada before, but that was not the only record destined to fall. Dominic Zwerger got it to 6-4 and the Austrians started to believe. Schneider’s second gave Roger Bader’s team four minutes to save the game and, on 59:11 Marco Rossi did just that. Cue pandemonium among the Austrian support, not to mention the neutrals in a largely Czech crowd. Nobody could quite believe what was happening.
Yet even fairytales must end – and Canada quelled the feelgood factor with an OT winner after just 15 seconds. For all John Tavares claimed the victory on the night, this one will be remembered as an Austrian triumph.
