World juniors: Slovakia Beats U.S

The 2018 World Juniors are underway and are proving to see some upsets as Slovakia were victorious thanks to Samuel Bucek scoring a goal unassisted goal with only 2:08 left in the third period. The two other Slovakian goals were scored by Filip Krivoski giving them a 3-2 win over the U.S.A.  Roman Durny, the Slovakian goaltender performed well in his debut as a junior making 43 saves.

Team U.S.A players Brady Tkachuk and Casey Mittlestadt were responsible for the U.S’s two goals. The U.S had been successful in their previous nine IIHL games prior to Thursday’s game, and expectations were high that the winning streak would continue. That World Junior’s winning streak began during the Bronze medal game in 2016 and continued until last year’s Gold medal win in Toronto, Canada.

Slovakia’s Bucek’s at the top of his game

Slovakia doesn’t have a great track record against the U.S with only seeing success four times in the 18 games they played against each other. Prior to winning against the U.S in the quarterfinals in 2009, Slovakia had been unsuccessful for six straight games.

Samuel Bucek has been the teams shining star with the efforts made in scoring the tiebreaking goal in Thursday’s game. He succeeded in outmanoeuvring three of the U.S’s defenders and then came around the net to put it past the goal crease.

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Slovakia’s Filip Krivoski was first to put on in the net in the early stages of the 2nd period. Thanks to a backhand in the third period he was able to give Slovakia a 2-1 lead. Only minutes later, Casey Mittlestadt had the U.S cheering as he closed the gap and tied the game in the third period with only 3 minutes left in regulation play. Yet the tied game didn’t last long as Samuel Bucek scored with minutes to spare and while the U.S made valiant efforts to tie the game before the buzzer called an end to the third period, Slovakia held them off for the win.

In other World Junior news

Sweden saw it improve during preliminary play against the Czech Republic to 2-0 as Filip Gustavsson saved 4 shots on goal and Elias Pettersson and Marcus Davidsson scored. To date, the Czech Republic has failed to win against Sweden in the World Juniors. Filip Zadina scored The Czech Republic’s Filip Zadina scored the team’s only goal in the second period.

Russia managed to take the win against Switzerland with Georgi Ivanov and Artur Kayumov each scoring in the 3rd period. For his part, Andrei Svechnikov was successful with two assists and an empty-net goal was scored by Vitali Abramov to give the team the win.

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