Meszaros earns Slovakia two points, Lalande saves one for Belarus

You can keep attacking 52 minutes in a row, however if you do not score even once, the only counter-attack of your opponent can change everything. Instead of looking for the game-winning goal, suddenly you have just 8 minutes to tie it up. Exactly this happened to Slovakia during the game against Belarus.

In the first period, Slovakia played 3:48 in a consecutive powerplay. Twenty-two seconds out of it, Belarus had only three players on the ice facing five Slovaks. And in the middle of the powerplay, Marián Gáborik had a penalty shot. But all the offensive "cloud attack" by Slovakia was idle, every shot was covered by fabulous Kevin Lalande who saved 32 of 34 Slovak shots, including the penalty shot.

The pressure of Team Slovakia was so tough that Belarus had no other chance than to have recourse to defensive and to occassional breakaways. And as they could rely on Lalande, it showed up to be a working tactics. Long fifty-one minutes Belarusians kept the score goal-less and just after then they stroke.

Sergei Kostistsyn penetrated the attacking zone, sent the puck to Alexei Kalyuzhny, released himself from a defender, received the puck back and with a one-time shot he sent Belarus to the lead!

The shocking goal showed up to Slovakia, there is nothing to wait for and if they do not want to waste the game at all, now they must. And it went rather than fast: Only 64 seconds later, Andrei Meszaros scored his first goal in the national team by a wristshot from the left circle.

The Cloud attack of Slovakia continued until the final horn and then also in the overtime. It was enough to play just 1:55 of the extra period to end it up for good. Andrej Meszaros scored again and with his second goal in the game he decided an extra point goes for Team Slovakia.

Have a look what a great atmosphere the game between Belarus and Slovakia had:

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