EHT: Czech Republic recovers and blanks Russia

The Czechs had to recover from the 0-7 blast yesterday against Finland. And they got an important good start when Jakob Nakladal gave the Czechs the lead already at 2:02. Nicely assisted by Jan Kovar from a Gretzky position behind the net. The rest of the period was even but without many chances. Russia didn't seem to be as motivated as in the earlier games.

Czech coach Alois Hadamczik commented on the difference between the two games: " It was completely different game than yesterday. Today it was more about tactics and skating.  Yesterday we were not good physically, Finland scored on many breakaways. It is great that our team was able to put us together and follow our game plan".

Russia got the first power play of the game but didn't create anything. The Czechs got the second power play of the game and added a second goal when veteran Petr Nedved made a move and beat Mikhail Biryukov with a high shot at the near post.


Nedved scores. Photo: Roman Kucera

At the start of the second period the Russians seemed to be more determined and created some good chances right away at the start of the period but Ilya Zubov shot just wide from a good position and Denis Kokarev had a partial breakaway but Jakub Kovar saved with his pad. But the Czechs managed to ride out the storm and came back into the game with two power plays. And on the second one Kamil Kreps gave the Czechs a three goal lead when he put his stick to a pass through the crease from Lukas Kaspar.

The feeling with 3-0 after two periods was that the third was going to be just a formality and so it was. Even if it was a decent period with good intensity the Czechs were in full control of the game. The Czechs added a fourth goal when Petr Koukal picked up a rebound from the boards for an easy finish.

The Czech captain Tomas Rolinek commented on the game buy saying "We smiled about how bad we performed against Finland. We did not analyzed that game, we just said we were going to forget it because the next day there was a new game. It is still true, that we want to win more against Russia than against any other opponent. It looked calm, but you never know when Russians put you under pressure. I was very surprised, that the Russians did not try to risk and attack us more intensively. Our goalie Kovar showed very steady performance. We played very well on power plays".

The results means that the Czechs now leads the tournament with five points, one point ahead of Sweden and two points ahead of Finland and Russia. And as the Czechs lost to Finland the Czechs can't win the tournament and the game between Sweden and Finland will be a final with the winner being the tournament winner.

 

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