Welcome back to Hockey in the South, the series where we cover the Men’s U18 World Hockey Championships in Texas. Day 5 was quieter with only had four teams in action but we still have a ton to discuss! Friday night gave us two major blowouts and a ton of exciting goals.
Game one was a Pool A matchup between Finland and Germany. Finland came out flying, scoring five goals in the first period. Their first two came just 19 seconds apart, the first from Aleksi Malinen and the second from Nico Huuhtanen. In addition, Sami Paivarinta, Samu Tuomaala and Joakim Kemell all added goals in the first frame. Unfortunately, the deficit was too great for Germany and they couldn’t muster up a comeback. The second period added another three goals for the Fins. These came from Niko Huuhtanen, Samu Salminen, Viljami Juusola. They went into the third period ahead 8-0. Come the third period, Salminen added another, followed by one from Ville Koivunen. Finland’s start to finish domination helped them leave the ice with a 10-0 win.
The second game of the evening was in Pool B between Canada and Switzerland. Canada would be without their superstar, Shane Wright for a second straight game. This was a non-factor as Canada still dominated on route to a win. Canada also went back to their game one starter, Thomas Milic for this one. The first period saw Canadian goals from forwards, Dylan Guenther and Connor Bedard. Canada’s scoring didn’t stop there. In the second period, Kitchener Ranger and 2021 Draft prospect, Francesco Pinelli scored two to give Canada a 4-0 lead. Brennan Othmann put Canada up 5-0 in the third period and from there, the Canadians added goals from Corson Ceulemans and Pinelli. Another solid performance from the Canadians lead to a 7-0 win and improved their record to 3-0-0.
Saturday has four games on the schedule. Pool A action has Russia set to take on the Czech Republic and and USA battling it out against Finland. Pool B will have Latvia and Sweden followed by Canada and Belarus.
We at Unbenched will be here every day for a round-up of all of the previous day’s events. Games can be streamed off of the IIHF website and HockeyTV.com or on TSN in Canada and NHL Network for the USA.
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