”We are here to win the trophy,” said Finnish defender Robin Salo

Robin Salo is playing in second Finnish defense pair and he likes to support offensive of his team, scored two goals in Bratislava already. “At least at this tournament, I am scoring goals and it´s very good, of course. Teammates are helping me a lot, they are blocking the view to opponent´s goalie and for me it´s much easier to score from the blue line,” told Salo a little bit about the secret of his scoring performance. Finland scored three goals in the first period and it looked like an easy game for “Suomi.” Afterwards, Slovaks went up and was good opponent for Finnish team. “Slovakia pressured really hard in second and third period. It was difficult to lead the game into win. I think that they played pretty good today. They even score important goal for 2-4 and continued with pressure, that wasn´t easy for us. Hopefully, we managed to get win and that´s important,” boasted Salo also the rival of Finland in Tuesday´s evening game. Finland clinched the semifinals, where will probably play against one of the double Sweden – Canada. Ivan Hlinka Memorial will maybe offer the prestigious Scandinavia derby…,,Yeah (laughing), it will be funny to get Sweden. So I really look forward to play with them, it´s always fun. Firstly, we need to think about tomorrow´s difficult game against Russia. Then, we want to get the first place. We are here to win the trophy and we will fight for it,” finished talented Finnish defender.

Finnish head coach Jussi Ahokas was kindly answering questions of journalist after the match. He could be satisfied, his team won the second game of tournament and became the aspirant for title. “It was the important game for us, winning of this qualified us to the semifinals. We started very well and scored early three goals. We had a puck in control for most of time, but then our concentration went down and Slovaks made contra attacks, what was difficult for us. The big thing is, that we hold on and got important three points,” evaluated Finnish coach the match. Finland is the "team of first periods,” where decided both games. Is it a special tactic aim from coach to decide the game as early, as possible? “If it works like a tactic, I will take that every time to score three or four goals in first period, I don´t mind. However, we had good starts of match games and played our game in the beginning, that´s the reason, why we succeeded in the first periods,” added Jussi Ahokas. Finnish coach changed goalkeepers after the game against USA, Niilo Halonen took his chance and stopped 24 of 26 Slovak shots. “We haven´t decided yet, who will be the first goalie for play-off round. Both goalies played good games and that´s great, that we have quality goaltending here,” finished the coach of “Suomi.”