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Finland went a long way to securing a semi-final berth at the 2019 Hlinka Gretzky Cup with a convincing 5-1 victory over the co-host Czech Republic. Roni Hirvonen led the Finnish offence with two goals and one assist, with Oliver Suni and Aatu Räty each recording two points.
Penalties: 7:7. PP goals: 0:2. SH goals: 1:0.
Referees: Hejduk, Pražák – Rampír, Rožánek. Attendance: 1911.
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They didn’t open the scoring until late in the first period, but the Finns broke the game open with four straight in the second period to take a 5-0 lead.
The reason the game stayed scoreless for so long was Finnish goaltender Joel Blomqvist, who made 13 saves in the first period. In the first 15 minutes he was under siege, but made some good saves and got some luck around the net as well. His finest save might have been on a Czech power play on Pavel Nowak, and then Ivan Ivan backhanded the puck wide on the rebound.
It was on the power play that the Finns opened the scoring. Jan Bednář made the initial save, but the rebound was swept to Roni Hirvonen, who swept it in the open side for his first of the game.
In the second period, the Finns scored four goals on eight shots.
First it was Aatu Räty banging a rebound out of mid-air in the 28th minute. Just eight seconds later, Jan Myšák broke through the Finnish defence and was pulled down from behind by Joel Määttä, drawing a penalty shot. Myšák had a chance to cut the deficit in half, but made a move to his backhand and shot wide. A couple of minutes later, Räty had a great chance to score again but rang a shot that went off both posts and out, but finally at 33:41, Hirvonen’s long shot was deflected in by Oliver Suni to make it 3-0.
After Hirvonen scored his second of the game on a power-play one-timer at 35:48, Bednář was lifted in favour of backup Pavel Čajan, but it made little difference. Just 52 seconds later, on the first shot the new goalie faced, Eiro Niemi ripped a wrist shot to the top corner to make it 5-0 after 40 minutes.
Early in the third period, Myšák got the Czechs on the board on a rising wrist shot to break Blomqvist’s shutout, but that’s as far as the comeback went. The teams battled a lot after the whistles over the last 17 minutes of the game, but no more goals were scored and the outcome had long since been decided.
Reactions
Karel Beran (head coach, Czech Republic): "This is a big disappointment for us. After the start of that game, which was pretty even, we got outworked all game long in the slot, and that was the difference. We didn't go very strong in one-on-one battles, we weren't where we should have been in front of the net, so all the pucks were won by the Finnish players. Those were the main aspects of the game."
Laine Anssi (head coach, Finland): "It was a good game for us. We skated well compared to yesterday. All the players focused perfectly on the game and everything went as it should. Today we played the way we wanted to play and it worked out."