Germany beats Slovakia in shootout

A shootout win over Italy and a loss after penalties against Denmark is all Slovakia had to show for after three games, while they haven’t even played any team of the big three in the group yet. So obviously they were under much more pressure before the game against Germany, who themselves had the same amount of points after games against USA, Sweden and Russia.

After almost 10 minutes in which both teams acted quite careful, the Slovaks had the first highlight when Tomas Zigo let a shot go from the side and the rebound was hit into the net out of mid-air by Tomas Matousek. The referees went to the video review to determine whether the stick was too high, but the call on the ice stood and Slovakia had a 1-0 lead.

Seconds later Marcel Hascak hit the goal post, which gave the impression the game might pick up steam now, but apart from a German powerplay big scoring chances were still limited. The only one came in the last minute of play when Felix Schütz broke through the middle and was stopped by Julius Hudacek. So the game went into the first break with a 5-5 shot score.

The second period started with a delay after some ice issues that the Zamboni had to solve with a second round. Germany came out with more fire, but the Slovaks scored first at the 21:58 minute mark when Libor Hudacek shot from a sharp angle and German goalie Danny aus den Birken did not look good letting the puck through for the 2-0.

In the following minutes Germany started to press Slovakia into their own end creating a couple of shots. With 27 minutes off the clock David Wolf caught Slovakia on a bad exchange to run a 2-on-0, but Gerrit Fauser could not hit the open net.

Eventually it was Patrick Reimer with a slapshot on the powerplay after 36 minutes, who got Germany the first well deserved goal after dominating the second period. 26 seconds later Yasin Ehliz stole the puck after a face off, sneaked away and defeated Hudacek through the legs for the 2-2 equalizer.

The arena went completely crazy when moments later Germany almost scored the 3-2 on a short-handed situation. On the other side aus den Birken was a bit lucky when a puck he could not control ended up on the goal post only.

Germany kept going strong to the net in the early going of the last period and midway through the period the chances started becoming more dangerous again. Dominik Kahun with a wraparound attempt and Felix Schütz with an open shot were close to scoring the go ahead goal. Nevertheless, time expired and the game went into overtime.

Yasin Ehliz had the first opportunity with a wrist shot from the face-off circle and 2 minutes later Patrick Reimer finished off a nice solo with a shot that could be stopped by Hudacek. Seconds before the end Ehliz had another shot, but missed again. And still in overtime with 4 seconds remaining Lukas Cingel could have turned the game upside down for the Slovaks with a shot from 4 meters distance, but the goalies forced the game into shootout as well.

Dominik Kahun scored on the first penalty with a straight shot and turned out to be the only scorer. This gave Germany a 3-2 OT win and two important points in the fight for the quarter finals. Slovakia will have to look towards the bottom of the standings now in order to avoid relegation, a scenario the proud hockey nation for sure had not seen coming.

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