Vasilevsky blanks Switzerland

Before the start of the tournament it was difficult to predict who would be the Russians' starting goalie for the tournament, but it was clear that their youngest goalie, Andrei Vasilevsky, wasn’t the worst of three. He started against Switzerland in his first U20 world championshp game at 17 years, just as he started in the U18 championships at 15 two years ago.

Russia opened the scoring in the first period when two forwards, Nail Yakupov and Ivan Telegin, led Alexander Khokhlachyov into the attacking zone and left the puck for him. KoKo’s task was only to score a goal, which he did at 8:22. Vasilevsky then began to do his part by stopping every Swiss shot on net.

In the second, Nikita Gusev was first on the rebound after Yaroslav Kosov’s shot and lifted the puck past Tim Wolf at 25:37. Gusev-Grigorenko-Kucherov played together on one line last year for the Red Army and, as predicted, they are playing together now. They orchestrated a third Russian goal when Gusev came into offensive zone and passed to Nikita Kucherov, who instead of shooting set up a pass for Mikhail Grigorenko, who made it 3-0. In this period, the Swiss outshot the Russians 15-8, but still trailed 2-0.

The last few minutes of the game weren’t quiet for the Russian defence. Stupid penalties, such as Yakupov interfering with the Swiss goalie, could have led to a goal for the Swiss. In the dying seconds, Samuel Walser was alone in front of Vasilevsky and was tripped by Mikhail Naumenkov and the crowd wanted a penalty shot; but Naumenkov was only given two minutes for tripping.

Andrei Vasilevsky stopped 40 shots and led the Russian team to its first victory at this year's World Junior Championship in Calgary.

Tweets by @eurohockey