The IIHF 2021 World Junior Hockey Championships opened Christmas Day in Edmonton with three games on the slate that saw Slovakia shut out Switzerland (1-0), Finland defeated Germany (7-1) in addition to Russia defeating the US by a close score of 5-3 to round out day one.
The match-up between Slovakia and Switzerland was a tight checking game that saw the only goal off the stick of Roman Faith while Switzerland’s tender Simon Latkoczy made 27 saves through 60 minutes of play.
The second game of the day saw two goals in a tight contest that saw goals from five different players Nikkanen, Raty, Niemela, Lundell, and Python giving the Fins while Stuetzle and Dube finished with one each..
Finland’s Pirroinen stopped 19 of 22 shots for the win, while Germany’s Tiefensee threw aside 40 of 45 shots in the loss.
In the final game of the day saw Vasili Ponomaryov score twice for Russia with singles from Zakhar Bardakov and IIya Safonov and Yegor Chinakhov while John Farinacci and Trevor Zegras responded for the US.
Photo Credit https://reddeerrebels.com/article/red-deer-and-edmonton-to-host-2021-iihf-world-junior-championship
Day two saw host Team Canada hammer Germany’s squad by a 16-2 trouncing; but in fairness to Team Germany they had only 14 players dressed due to COVID-19 and were missing nine (9) players out of the line-up.
Day two saw Team Sweden win their 53rd straight game in preliminary round play having not lost a game since 2006 with a convincing 7-1 win over the Czech Republic.
The second game of the day saw Canada rout Team Germany 16-2 after a close opening minutes as Team Canada held a 2-1 lead.
Scoring cam goals from Ghule and Mercer but Peterka replied at the 13:12 only to have Tomasino and Krebs add two taking a 4-1 lead after 20 minutes.
Canada scored seven unanswered goals in the second as Mercer and Krebs got singles while Newhook added a pair and Tomasino added his second of the game to build up a 11-1 lead after 40 minutes.
Cousins added one in the third to complete his hat trick while singles came from Pelletier, Harley and McMichael.
Germany closed out the scoring on a goal by Elias at 59:42 ending the embarrassing loss in the World Junior Championship making the final 16-2.
In the final game of the night saw the US dominate Austria with a 11-0 SO win for their first win of the Tournament after losing their opener 5-3 against Finland.
The Americans led 1-0 after the opening period on a goal by Helleson and ran up the score in the second with Zegras and Boldy each scoring twice while singles came from Farinacci and Brisson opening up a 7-0 lead.
The US added four more as Berard, Brisson, Boldly and Colangelo finished out the scoring in the impressive 11-0 win that saw them even their record at 1-1 in the tournament.
Sportswave covered the World Junior’s in Vancouver two years ago and we can honestly say that the committee treated us first class, no different this year.
Continued Success!!!
