Russia enters the playoff stage as the first seed team from Group B after a
2-1 win over Slovakia at the Hartwall Arena.
Russia lost a point in their first game of the tournament but have since
that
taken three straight regulation wins, and have shown signs of excellence and
is oozing with confidence.
Before the game we were confident, and then even got the first goa. If you
don't believe you can win any team, you'll never win the gold medal, said
Russian forward Radel Fazleyev.
This Russian team is excellent at churning out wins. They're not always
flashy, although some of their long cycles are just that, but in the
preliminary round the red machine has got the job done almost without
hiccups.
In the game against Slovakia, they had some penalty trouble but could still
come out on top. Russia had to kill off seven penalties in the game.
"We couldn't score goals and their goalie played well so we need to work
with
out scoring tomorrow, hopefully we can turn it on in the next game.
"Penalty kill was good, but we took too many penalties," Fazleyev said.
Slovakia came into the game after a big disappointment in their game against
Finland 24 hours earlier. Slovakia had a 2-0 lead early in that game, but
ended up losing 8-3.
"I think it was an easier game than yesterday's game against Finland, a much
better game, we tried our best but didn't make it in the end," said
Slovakia's
Filip Lestan.
Artur Lauta's first period goal that gave Russia the 1-0 lead was a result
of
one of those impressive long cycles in which the puck finally ended in Ivan
Prokorov's stick. He skated around the Slovak net, and sent it to the point
to
Alexander Mikulovich who fired a wrist shot.
Adam Huska made the initial save, but left a rebound in front of him. Thanks
to two Slovak players colliding, Lauta got two cracks at slamming the puck
in,
and he gave Russia the lead at 15:29.
At 9:12 into the second period, Yegor Rykov gave Russia a two-goal buffer
when
he fired a well places wrist shot from the slot. Vladislav Kamenev had got
the
puck to the Slovak crease and when the Slovak defense tried to clear it,
they
only got it as far as to Rykov who had plenty of time to aim his shot. Huska
made a fine dive but couldn't get his pads on the puck.
The buffer turned out to be useful.
Slovakia had four power plays in the first two periods and even got to play
almost a minute with a two-man advantage but the Russian penalty kill, which
had only let in one goal in the tournament before the game, worked well
tonight as well and Slovaks couldn't find a way to bury their chances.
Then, while both teams had a player in the penalty box, Matus Sukel won
cleanly a faceoff in the Russian zone. Christian Jaros fired a slap shot and
Alexander Georgiev didn't have a chance to stop the shot that landed in the
top corner of his net at 15:50 into the second period.
"I'm not sure if they deserved the goal, I made a mistake and lost the
faceoff, and maybe we got a little nervous and couldn't finished our
chances,"
Fazleyev said.
Either way, Slovakia didn't give up and chased a tying goal until the end,
and
the Russian coaches surely were a little worried during yet another Slovak
power play with less than five minutes remaining, but the Russian penalty
kill
worked perfectly, again.
We wanted to keep them in their zone in the end, but got a penalty, and that
was the problem. We had some chances and but we didn't score so it wasn't
enough,"" Lasten said. "
Russia wins the group, and takes on Denmark in the quarter-final. Slovakia
finishes fourth, and will meet Sweden in their quarter-final on Saturday.
RISTO PAKARINEN
http://www.worldjunior2016.com/en/games/2015-12-31/RUS-vs-SVK/#recap
--- SBBSecho 2.30-Win32
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