MONTREAL — Denis Godla made 37 saves to lead Slovakia to a 2-1 victory over defending champion Finland in Group A round-robin play at the world junior championship on Saturday.
Matus Holenda’s second-period goal stood up as the winner and Peter Cehlarik also scored for Slovakia (1-0-0-1), which bounced back from an 8-0 loss to Canada in its first game of the tournament on Friday. Captain Martin Reway added two assists.
“We prepared ourselves for today’s game,” said Godla, who was pulled during Friday’s loss to Canada after giving up five goals on 23 shots. “It was a new beginning.”
Mikko Rantanen had the lone goal for Finland (0-0-1-1), which opened play with a 2-1 shootout loss to the United States on Friday.
“I think it was a tough game,” said Finland coach Hannu Jortikka. “The concentration maybe wasn’t 100 per cent. We had a lot of scoring chances â empty net, post, whatever â but something was missing.”
Finnish goaltender Jusse Saros stopped 10-of-12 shots in the losing effort.
