By Jamie Neugebauer
sportsnet.ca
WJHC Day three studs and duds
Day three, in stark contrast to day two, produced four thrillers.
In the early game, the Czechs produced a fantastic effort and scored two first-period goals on route to a 3-1 upset win over Finland.
Next, Canada overcame two two-goal deficits, and scored five unanswered goals to dump the Slovaks 6-3.
The third game showed that the Swiss are no pushovers as they forced Sweden to a shootout. Victor Rask’s shootout goal, however, gave the Swedes the 3-2 victory.
Finally, the host Russians needed a third-period goal from Vladimir Tkachyov to put away the Americans in the most exciting game of the tournament thus far.
Studs from day three
Lino Martschini of Switzerland, all 5-foot-6 and 143 pounds of him. The former Peterborough Pete showed his tremendous vision by finding Eliot Antonietii in the slot with a perfect feed, and helped give the Swiss the early lead on Sweden. He is currently leading the surprising Swiss with four points, all assists, and has been their biggest offensive catalyst to date. He also got a helper on Mike Kunzle’s goal in the second.
Andrei Makarov, the Russian goaltender on the day, was absolutely fantastic, putting on a show for the Ufa faithful. The netminder for the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades made 41 saves, many of them of the difficult variety, as the United States played with terrific energy all game.
Leafs draft-pick and Canadian defenceman Morgan Rielly really stepped his game up after struggling somewhat against the Germans. He paced the team’s offence with three points and just as importantly, was effective and efficient in transitioning the Canadians from the defensive to the offensive.
Slovakian Marko Dano, a regular for Slovan Bratislava of the Kontinental Hockey League, was expected to produce for the often offensively starved nation. Thus far, he has done just that. He was easily the most dangerous player for Slovakia as they put a scare into the mighty Canadians and was rewarded for it with a three-point night.
The Czech first line of Tomas Hertl, Dmitrij Jaskin and Tomas Hyka showed up after a disappointing opening-day loss against Sweden. All three of them got on the score sheet against Finland and set the tone energetically for the rest of their team.
Duds from day three
Canadian defenceman
Ryan Murphy’s difficulties in his own zone are well documented, even in the Ontario Hockey League for his Kitchener Rangers. These five-on-five defensive-zone troubles showed up against Slovakia as a goal, and two other breakdowns, were by and large lost assignments on his part.
While much credit is owed to the Czechs’ swarming team defence, Finland’s top unit of Joel Armia, Markus Granlund and Miika Salomaki were completely unenergetic and toothless, lacking energy and cohesion. A lot is expected of Suomi this year, but after managing only 29 shots, with many of them from the outside, they will need to be much better moving forward.
On tap for Saturday:
Day 4 will feature a Swedish team that has been up-and-down thus far facing off against the Latvians, who have looked extremely poor in their first two games.
The late game will be between a Russian team that has yet to really click offensively after two one-goal games, and the Germans who have given up nine and eight goals in their first two games respectively.
