France upsets Slovakia

An important game was ahead of both teams as the Slovaks looked for their first win of the tournament after falling to both the Czech Republic and Canada and Team France got defeated by the Italians following a surprise shootout victory over the Canadians. However, it was Team Slovakia who was the favourite going into this one.

And the first period only proved that as it was basically all Slovaks for majority of the opening twenty minutes. They peppered Cristobal Huet's net early on and despite not firing a shot in a long time late in the period, the momentum was still on their side. The French team managed to get some shots on Ján Laco as well, but the first one came thirteen minutes into the frame.

About fifteen minutes in, with forward Dávid Skokan in the penalty box for high-sticking, the Slovak fans started chanting „We will score with four men on the ice“ and they got their wish. With Team France looking to swing the momentum, veteran Ladislav Nagy crossed the blue line and ripped one past Huet to open the scoring.

At the beginning of the second period, Team France was the one with the momentum, but it didn't bring the change that they would expect. There were more shots on Laco and the Slovaks only rarely entered the French zone, but it was Huet who was scored on first in the frame. Just three minutes in, Ladislav Nagy received a pass in front and beat the Swiss-based goalie for his second goal of the game.

After that, the French team still dictated tempo of the game for some time and after all, Laco had to fish the puck out of his net as well. Three minutes later, Baptiste Amar blasted one from the blue line and it went through traffic in front and into the back of the net for the well-deserved powerplay goal.

Anyway, the Slovaks regained control of the game just a couple of minutes later and sure wanted to take a bigger lead on the scoreboard as well. That was accomplished by Miroslav Šatan four minutes prior to the period-ending horn and it wasn't a good one for Huet as he could have had it easily. Nonetheless, the score was 3-1 for the Slovaks and the shots were 18-12 for Team France after forty.

Again, the French team was looking to pull off a miracle though. First nine second of the third period were smooth sailing for Team Slovakia, but then the momentum switched to the French side in a big way.

Two straight penalties were taken by the Slovaks and the opposition responded on a two-man-advantage with Baptiste Amar finding the back of the net for the second time in the game. Just seconds later, Team France capitalized on the other penalty as well when Antoine Roussel tipped the puck in front and in to tie things up at three goals apiece.

That wasn't the end though. The Slovaks failed to take advantage of a two-man-advantage and just five minutes later, Teddy Da Costa and Anthony Guttig got the puck to the doorstep where Damien Fleury scored the go-ahead goal on the rebound. Team Slovakia tried to come back, but they did not and Antoine Roussel would end the night with an empty-netter to finish things off.

„We got a couple of good bounces and work hard for them and turned the game around.“ - Antoine Roussel

„We need to take it one game at a time, which is going to be difficult now, but I think this team can do it.“ - Marek Hrivik

„We had trouble with the speed of the Slovakians in the first period, but we started coming on in the second.“ - Dave Henderson