Belarus lose WC opener

In a sold-out Minsk Arena the World Championship host Belarus lost 1-6 to USA on the first day of the tournament. The game was by no means as uneven as the final score. Brock Nelson scored 1-0 for the Americans in the 13th minute but then the score remained until the last five minutes of the second period when USA scored three goals in less than three minutes.

"Those few minutes at the end of the second period were crucial, and then we went out at the start of the third period and played well but couldn't score", says Alexei Kalyuzhny to IIHF.com. "If we'd taken one or two of those chances we might have got back into the game."

Jacob Trouba, John Gaudreau and Colin McDonald scored the American middle period goals. Andrei Stepanov got the only goal of the home team for seconds before the second intermission.

USA added two powerplay goals in the last period. Trouba got his second goal of the game before Jake Gardiner finalized the scoring for 6-1 three minutes before the end.

"Tonight was a very close game and in the first period it was ultra competitive," said the American head coach Peter Laviolette. "I thought that Belarus played extremely hard and I liked the competitiveness of our guys as well.

Belarus gets to rest on the second day of the championship while USA will play Switzerland.

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