Kazakhstan didn’t have much to offer in 5-1 loss to Switzerland.

05 May 2012 | Mika Leino

Switzerland and Kazakhstan were last teams to open their WC in Helsinki. From the very beginning it was clear who is commanding in this confrontation.

Kazakhstan is now participating for the 6th time in WC group A tournament and has won so far only four games. After their game against Switzerland it is obvious that there won't be much improvement in that gategory. On the other hand it might be that only one win is enough to save the place in group A.

Switzerland for their part was a very pleasant surprice. With energic skating and really hard working style they didn't leave much space for the Kazakhs. Also St.Louis Blues drafted goalie Reto Berra was very reliable and took easily care of rare Kazakhstan shots. Ivo Rüthemann opened the scoring with a slapshot from the point and that goal Kazakh goalie Vitali Kolesnik can take on his account. Second goal was scored on power play by defender Mark Streit after beautiful passing and actually all Swiss players could have earned an assist. After that kind of puck moving Kazakh penalty kill unit surtenly didn't know where are they and what is happening.

Kazakhstan offence was mainly one man tries which usually ended to a slapshot after Swiss blueline. At the beginning of the second period Roman Savchenko surprised Reto Berra with a slap shot from the blueline. But shortly after the goal Swiss active play forced Kazakhstan to take penalties which finally cost the game for them. Mark Streit and Ivo Rütheman both scored their second goals on power play. When Felicien du Bois scored one more remained the third period only as a formality where no more goals were scored.

Swiss team captain New York Islander Mark Streit: "There are only good teams in this tournament. Anyway we succeeded in our game plan getting puck deep in their zone and getting that way two early goals. Also our active playing caused them some penalties and we took advantage of that."

On Sunday both teams will have very interesting game ahead of them when Switzerland plays against Slovakia and Kazakhstan will face France in a game which might be already very decisive regarding relegation.