Laine continues to dominate against Germany

The German loss against France on saturday posed the question whether you should focus on the positive aspects of the game, that they created plenty of scoring chances, or the negative ones, that they could not turn the talent of the German squad into a win. Before the tournament hopes were high in Germany to make the quarterfinals as they have 4 NHL stars on their roster and a very solid group from the DEL to back them up. With the loss it was apparent that now a victory against one of the big teams is needed to still do so.

Finland however may be one of the toughest teams to reclaim the lost points against. The Scandinavians are one of the most constant teams over the past two decades and feature a group of potential future superstars in world icehockey like Laine, Aho and Barkov along with experienced veterans like Koivu and Pyörälä.

Right from the start Finland built up the same pressure as they had done against Belarus. And again it was Patrik Laine, who got Finland on the board with a one-timer on the powerplay after 6:22 minutes. He is often compared to Alexander Ovechkin and this marker from the face-off circle showed why. Three minutes later Finland was again on the powerplay. Leo Komarov directed a quick feed from Jussi Jokinen into the net for the 2-0. Laine picked up his 5^th scorer point on that play matching a record in world championships for U18 players setup by Jaromir Jagr.

For 17 minutes the Germans did not enjoy their premium seats to the Laine-Show at all, but two scoring chances by Philip Gogulla and a Christian Ehrhoff shot in the last three minutes gave them hope they might at least sneak into a supporting role of the act.

Indeed Germany could control the puck more often in the second period, but it was another Finnish youngster, who should score next. On a 4-on-4 at minute 29:53 Mikael Granlund found 18-year old Kärpät Oulu forward Sebastian Aho near the right face-off circle and he put the puck in with a one-timer for the 3-0 for Finland.

With two minutes to go in the period the Finns had another beauty of a goal to add. when Leo Komarov started a run towards the German side with a cross ice pass over to Pyörälä, who gave it back to Jarno Koskiranta in the middle and he just put his stick in to make it 4-0.

For Korbinian Holzer this was too much to bear. On the next attack he wrestled down Antti Pihlström and almost initiated a fight after Pihlström retaliated with an attempted shot at his head. The referees only saw the roughing penalties, which were started by Pihlström why Germany ended up on the powerplay. It took the team just 10 seconds to finally get on the board with a slapshot by Brooks Macek setup by Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl. With a 4-1 lead for the Finns both teams went into the last break.

In the last period the Leijonat focused on defense and let Germany play a bit, but more than hitting the cross bar through a Gogulla shot was not in the cards for them. Three seconds before the end Patrik Laine even added a second goal of his for the final 5-1 score.

Finland's next opponent will pose a bigger threat as they will take on team USA tomorrow evening, while Germany will look to grab the first win against Slovakia on tuesday afternoon.

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