Czechs edge Canada in shootout thriller

After 65 minutes of thrilling hockey, Dominik Šimon stood at centre ice as the last shooter of a tied shootout between his Czech team and the Canadians, and was ready to give it an amazing ending. 

"As soon as the coach told me I would be in the shootout, I knew I was going to do it," he later said. By "it", he means lure goaltender Jake Paterson to his forehand and then beat him with a one-handed backhand deke, a la Peter Forsberg at the 1994 Olympics. 

"It was the last shot, so I knew the goalie would react to my first move. I moved to the forehand and then back. Fortunately, it was successful."

Four times in the hockey game, the Czech Republic took the lead and four times the Canadians tied it.

The teams traded goals in the first period. David Kämpf opened the scoring just past the seven-minute mark on a play where he started himself with a bodycheck along the boards in the Canadian zone. Later on the play, he took a feed in front from Ondřej Kaše and swept it in on the backhand. Sam Reinhart tied it late on a power play after the puck was moved around and Bo Horvat found him in front, and the highly-rated prospect for the 2014 NHL Draft snapped it home.

"Both the penalty kill and the power play were working at times, and at other times they weren't," said Reinhart. 

The Czechs were back in their own end a lot in the first period, and took a couple of penalties trying to handle the big Canadian forwards, but after being outshot 13-5 in the first, they came back with a much stronger second period, generating some power plays of their own and outshooting Canada 11-5. They scored the period's only goal just after one of those power plays expired on a Michal Plutnar blast from the point.

"I think there were seven people in front of the net and the puck came right in front of me, so I just literally closed my eyes and took a slapshot and it went in," said Plutnar. "It was a great feeling and it's great to beat Team Canada in a game like this." It was 2-1 after two periods, at which point the game really became interesting. 

Just after the horn sounded to end the second period, Canada's Connor McDavid shot the puck on Czech goalie Marek Langhammer, which created some fireworks. Plutnar tried to chase down McDavid and inadvertently collided with the linesman. 

"I got mad because after the whistle he took a shot on our goalie," Plutnar explained afterward. "I lost my focus and it was stupid, but I can't take it back."

Plutnar was assessed a minor penalty on the play, though many in the arena speculated that he should have got more for being physical with an official.

"McDavid probably should have got a penalty for shooting the puck too, and I didn't even touch him. The ref got in the way and I bumped into him and he fell. I don't think it was really anything."

With a four-on-three power play to start the third period, Canada came back once more. 

"That's one thing that I think we can say we did well," said Jonathan Drouin, who scored the 2-2 goal with a blast high to the blocker side 24 seconds into the period, touching off an absolutely wild 10 or so minutes of hockey. "We showed that when we're playing from behind, we can come back. The thing is just not to fall behind so often and there were a lot of reasons for that. We did well in some areas and other areas we have to be better."

Just when it seemed the momentum was swinging in Canada's way, the Czechs re-took the lead on a four-on-four. It took just two seconds from a faceoff in the attacking zone for Vojtěch Tomeček to put the puck between Jake Paterson's legs. Then a two-many-men penalty with 9:09 to play put Canada in a tough spot, but as Drouin said, they came back again.

On the penalty kill, Curtis Lazar circled the net and found Scott Laughton driving to the net. His shot was stopped but it was fed back to Aaron Ekblad, who took a chance and pinched and it paid off.

But the Czech power play wasn't over yet, and with 7:15 to play Jakub Vrána fired a rocket over the shoulder of Paterson to restore the Czech lead.

One more but -- just 16 seconds later, Charles Hudon blasted the puck in to tie it once again at 4-4. And that's how it would remain through the end of the third period and overtime. 

"The Czechs played a heck of a game and we lost in a shootout. it's not like we got blown out," said Canadian coach Brent Sutter, downplaying the loss, which was his first as coach of Team Canada in his third World Junior Championship. "Whoever plays Canada, it's the biggest game of the tournament. Every period is important because you know the opposition's always going to have their game at a high level."

"This is something we didn't expect," admitted Czech coach Miroslav Přerost. "We are delighted with the two points. But even more important for us is the knowledge that if we work hard, we can achieve our goals. The players know that now."

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