World Junior Championships: Canada, Sweden, Germany Snag first wins
Sweden ends Switzerland’s comeback effort late
It wasn’t Sweden’s best ever effort, but they will be happy to start their tournament with a 3-2 win over Switzerland to open Wednesday’s action.
It took 36 minutes for the first goal to be scored, with Daniel Torgersson backhanding in from close range after taking Simon Edvinsson’s pass.
Torgersson scored again just 24 seconds into the third, with Izak Rosen adding one of his own 10 seconds later to seemingly put the game out of reach for the Swiss.
However, Switzerland had other plays. Exactly one minute apart, Attilio Biasca and Dario Allenspach beat Sweden’s Jesper Wallstedt to make it 3-2, creating some fear in Sweden’s game. Theodor Niederbach was ejected late for a dangerous hit, giving Switzerland five minutes on the power play to potentially tie things up. However, the Swedes took a serious penalty, suppressed the scoring chances and held on for the victory.
Canada wins the first match against Latvia
In front of the largest, yet very modest, home crowd at Rogers Place seen throughout the tournament, Canada began its quest for gold with a 5-2 victory over Latvia.
It was hardly a walk in the park as their previous two meetings were – a 16-0 win in 2010 and a 10-2 victory in 2017 – but Canada’s big guns still swung. At 7:31, Connor Bedard opened the scoring with a wrist shot that beat Patriks Berzins, doing so after sustained pressure from the Canadians.
But at 18:06, Rainers Darzins surprisingly tied the game at one apiece, beating Sebastian Cossa high to give Latvia some momentum late in the first. Penalty trouble for the Latvians meant Canada would continue to press, although Latvia had three scoring chances on the team’s first penalty kill
Eventually Lukas Cormier beat Berzins high after taking Joshua Roy’s pass to convert to make it 2-1. Five minutes later, Olen Zellweger beat the traffic in front of Berzins to make it 3-1. Ridley Greig scored 59 seconds after that by carrying a Latvian defender on his back before tapping the one-handed shot between Berzin’s legs and in.
Latvia looked for reasons to celebrate and at 44:56, after intense pressure from the Latvians, they got what they wanted. Bogdans Hodass scored with a blast on the man advantage and beat Cossa cleanly to make it a two goal game. Latvia continued to press, outshooting Canada 15-14, but William Dufour’s goal with five minutes remaining took the steam out of Latvia’s sails and secured the 5-2 win for Canada.
Blank point three in important win for Germany
Germany wrapped up Wednesday’s action at Rogers Place with a 4-2 win, led by three goals from forward Alexander Blank.
The win puts Germany in a good spot to reach the quarter-finals early, with Austria now having to win against Sweden, USA or Switzerland at some point.
However, Austria got off to a good start. Despite allowing the first eight shots of the game, Senna beat Peeters Florian Bugl on his team’s first shot of the contest on the power play at 2:45. That lead lasted for a few more minutes until Blank set up Josef Eham near the net, slicing the puck past Sebastian Wraneschitz for the 1-1 goal.
Austria was outscored 14-4 in the first, but scored early in the second to regain the lead. This time Jonas Dobing’s backhander seemed to have caught Bugl by surprise and it was 2-1 all of a sudden.
Once again, however, it didn’t last long as Blank scored his first goal of the night at 23:37 to force a tie game. At 28:49 on the power play, he converted off Justin Volek’s pass, and then the two connected again for the 4-2 goal on Germany’s next power play around the halfway point of the contest, the final goal of the game.