Team Switzerland starts well, then prevents disaster

The second day of play in Paris starts with Slovenia and Switzerland both having their debut in the tournament. A theoretically weak Slovenian side, which has to play the whole World Championship without its star Anze Kopitar, gets upset early in the first period by a series of effective and strong plays by the Swiss, who close the first twenty minutes of the game with a score of 4-0. Between the two goals -scored by Ambühl and Haas, respectively- pass just twelve seconds.

Unfortunately for the Eisgenossen, this is how far they will get for the rest of the game: the Slovenes, complete witha new goalie, race back and, despite them trailing by a considerable amount of goals, they manage to slowly upset their opponents, who thought they were now safe. The second period ends with the lone goal by Mursak, but it is in the final twenty minutes that Slovenia shows its best, exploiting a series of embarrassing mistakes by the Swiss as well as a terrible sequence of fouls and reckless play by Furrer, which basically make the 4-4 draw at the end of regulation time obvious, also thanks to players like Jeglic and Urbas, who embodied the concept of "never say die" for their team. After a scoreless overtime, Switzerland manages to win the shootout with a lone score by Damien Brunner, which makes them earn two important -but undeserved- points.

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