Austria earns first long-awaited points against Norway

Austria and Norway, both still without victories, open the last day of preliminary round in Sochi. Austrian coach Manny Viveiros chooses Mathias Lange in the goal, while defender Mats Trygg is back in Norway roster after the injury suffered in first match. The few attendance is rewarded by an enjoyable game that gives immediate emotions, mainly courtesy of Austria: during a Norway power play Michael Graber and Thomas Vanek both has chance to score. Is same Grabner at 04:27 to open the score being ready to deflect a centre by Thomas Koch for his fourth goal in the tournament. Another NHler, Michael Raffl, doubles the score at 06:52 with a nice move under the eyes of Trygg and Tollefsen, unable to interfere. Norway has a good chance with Morten Ask, - shot blocked by Lange – and a great one with a double power play – out Raffl and Altmann – but Austria survived. Two minutes before the break Nodl hits the bar after a quick counter-attack. In the second period, after a break to replace a panel broken after a charge by Andreas Nodl on Jonas Holos into the boards, Norway scores at with Per-Age Skroder: forward misses the target with first shot, but Thoresen rescues the puck and serves again Skoder for the successful try. At 33 Vanek somehow misses an apparently easy goal, hitting the post. One minute after the Norwegian post rings again, chipped by Lebler. With five minutes left Ulmer shots on Haugen mask a smart assist by Raffl.

The moment glass breaks

Goal scoring: this is the problem for Norway: Roy Johansen team shows a huge difficult in finalizing the chances created by the forwards. In the third period Norway is dominant and can count at least three-or four good chances to score, by Ask, Bastiansen , Thoresen and Roymark, but none of this really a capital one while Austria has a couple of chances with Raffl, Nodl and Latusa – the latter stealing a puck in Norwegian defense , all well defended by Haugen. At 58:23 Austria freezes the game: a long pass by Daniel Welser puts Michael Grabner alone with Haugen: classy move by New York Islanders forward and final 3-1 Austria.

After the game Patrick Thoresen is very disappointed: "We talked before the game that we have to be aware of their speed, and their counter-attack. We didn't do that in the first, and they got ahead of us. I thought we worked fine in the second and third. But you're down by two goals, and it's hard to catch up. They can defend, and just play good defence. That's much easier than playing offence, obviously. Yeah, a very tough loss for us. We have now to regroup. Even if we're disappointed right now we have to forget it and move forward. We still have a chance to make the quarterfinals, but now the opponent is going to be tougher.'' 

Opposite feelings for top-scorer Michael Grabner:  "We really needed this win here, and it's big for our team, and now we're going to see what happens in the other games. I think we improved little things every game so far, and we're going to try to get even better next game. We've been playing some good hockey, in other games we had stretches where we were pretty good, so we've got to keep on continuing to get better." Grabner is modest about his great tournament so far (he scored five goals in three games): "I'm feeling good. I think we've had some chemistry, with my linemates, and we've gotten a lot of chances in the last three games here. We'll see what happens next game."

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