In the quarterfinals, Finland will face top-promising Slovakia. Germany’s great fight was not enough for the next place.
In the quarterfinals of the World Youth Ice Hockey Championships, Finland will face Slovakia, the second in group B. The matter was resolved in the late night match of the A group between Canada and Germany. Canada won the match 6–3.
In the final match of their group, Finland won Sweden’s winning goal race with 5–4. Nuoret Leijonat was third in the group after Sweden and Canada. Latvia advances to the quarterfinals as the fourth team in the group.
Germany, on the other hand, is the last in its group and has to face Norway in the qualifying game. The losing team is relegated to the B series.
Germany, which suffered a harsh 2-6 defeat to Latvia, put up a tenacious performance against Canada. It led the match once and drew level twice. By Jordain Dumais However, a 4–3 goal in the middle of the final set ended Germany’s pursuit.
The match got off to a confusing start when the Canadian superstar Conor Geekie received the jet command after only six seconds. Judgment came when Geekie tackled Germany Samuel Schidler on.
Dangerous Slovakia
Former ice hockey powerhouse Slovakia is one of the most cheerful teams at the Games. It beat the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Norway in showmanship.
Slovakia will play in the tournament without one of their hardest stars in that age group, the striker Juraj Slafkovský and defender Šimon Nemec. They were booked first and second in the 2022 NHL draft.
However, Slovakia has shown in this tournament that it has talent from the age group born in 2004-2005 on a wide front. Minnesota NHL Reserve Servac Petrovsky leads the points market with powers of 5+4.
Maxim Strbak leads Sweden by Theo Lindstein with defenders’ point exchange with power 1+5. The good puck defender is a second-round pick of the Buffalo Sabers from last summer.
Last summer, the team’s brightest superstar was booked for the St. Louis Blues as the tenth player in the entire booking event Dalibor Dvorsky. The skilled 18-year-old center has scored four points in the tournament, but we can expect to see more from him.
Other top Slovakian individuals include first place bookings Philip the Butcher and Samuel Honzek.
In the training match of the tournament, Slovakia was a pleasant opponent for the Young Lions, as Finland was better with a score of 5–1.
In the other quarter-final matches, the USA will face Latvia, Sweden will face Switzerland and Canada will face the Czech Republic. The semifinals will be played on Tuesday. The match between Finland and Slovakia starts at 1 pm Finnish time.