Team Canada qualifies for Semi’s at Spengler Cup

One of the favourite matches at the Spengler Cup tournament is HC Davos against Team Canada. 36 times both teams have played each other, 23 times Team Canada left the ice as the winner, 13 times Davos had the better end. While Davos lost to Yekaterinburg 5-1 in yesterdays evening game, the Canadians took 3 points from the same team the day before. One point would give Team Canada a semi-final berth. Leonardo Genoni for Davos and Jeff Glass for Canada stood between the pipes tonight. 

The first period was a back and forth of both teams with an even number of 9 shots after 15 minutes. Davos had 4 new players on their roster, most of them with little experience on the NLA level due to various injuries the team had summed up.

During the first break Captain Andres Ambühl was asked about the introduction of the various young players: "The young players are doing really well, it's still 0-0 (laughs). Our first period wasn't too bad, it was better than Iyesterday but there's still 40 minutes to play, we need to keep pushing", he said, comparing yesterdays first period with today.

In the 6th minute Davos was unable to free the puck out of their zone, Lombardi took the puck and passed it over to Alexandre Giroux who placed a precise shot above Genoni's shoulder and gave Team Canada the first lead of the game. Jens Nater took a seat in the cooling box in the 28th minute but seconds after the face-off Andres Ambühl had a break-away but missed the goal. Cory Conacher was the first of his team to be benched seconds later for slashing but Davos was unable to get the equalizer on the powerplay. Chris DiDomenico in the 32nd minute took a pass from behind the goal and because Genoni wasn't ready, he beat the goalie inbetween the pads. It seemed that Davos was slowly getting tired, Canada had 19 shots while Davos only fired 3 on Jeff Glass in this second period.

With the final period the chances for Davos were fading to collect 3 points. A loss would mean that the home team would play Automobilisk Yekaterinburg. The Canadians on the other hand didn't seem to rest on their two goal lead and kept on giving Genoni some work. Davos tried but just didn't have the power to keep up with the tempo game of Team Canada.

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