The defeat of the USA, the fiasco of the Czech Republic and Sweden, the comeback of Kazakhstan: what will be remembered for the second day of the IIHF World Championship

Surprise in the Scandinavian derby

The second day of the World Championship began with no less loud sensation than the one created by Latvia in the match with Canada.

The Danish national team beat Sweden for the first time in the World Cup.

The hero of this meeting was Niklas Jensen, who scored a hat-trick and scored four points per game.

Denmark has long been a rather modest hockey power against the background of its neighbors from Sweden.

But this season she managed to beat Tre Krunur for the first time at the Eurochallenge, and in Riga Heinz Ehlers' wards wanted to start at the world championship with the same result.

Already in the first period, the Danes showed their attitude and threw the Swedes with a score of 7: 3.

After the break, the Swedes still opened an account, and then Jensen entered the game - one of the four players with such a name in the Danish national team.

He responded twice to the goals of Tre Krunur, and at the end of the second period organized a moment for Emil Christiansen, who brought the Danes ahead.

In the middle of the third period, Jokerit's forward scored for the third time and scored the first hat-trick of the Riga World Championship.

The match ended with a goal by Karl Klingberg, who also played great, making a double and giving one pass.

But his efforts turned out to be little - none of the Swedish NHL players showed themselves in any way and did not stand up for their 38-year-old goalkeeper Viktor Fast, so the Swedes started with a defeat for the second time in a row at the World Championship.

Germany's 14 goals in two games

Following the results of two days, the German national team became the most productive team of the tournament in Riga.

The day before, Tony Söderholm's wards defeated Italy with a score of 9: 4, and less than a day later they scored five goals for Norway.

The authors of all the goals were different hockey players.

The youngest of them was Lucas Reichel, who celebrated his 19th birthday this week.

The nephew of the Olympic champion from the Czech Republic Robert Reichel took advantage of the opponent's mistake in the middle of the match and performed a kind of bullet.

In just the first two days, Chicago Blackhawks avenue scored five scoring points and, together with his compatriot Marcel Neubels, led the bombing race.

The Norwegians scored just one less shot than the Germans, but only distinguished themselves once.

This was done by Mathis Olimb, for whom this world championship was already the 13th in his career.

Four Russian debut goals against Great Britain

So far, only the Russian national team has achieved two victories in two matches from the teams of Group A.

On Saturday, Valery Bragin's wards met with the main outsider of the World Cup, Great Britain, and quite expectedly defeated it with a score of 7: 1.

The outcome of the game was already clear by the 11th minute, when the British goal was visited by four goals.

Two of them were scored by Anton Burdasov, who caught up with Jensen in goals in the tournament.

The author of the winning puck in the match with the Czech Republic, Mikhail Grigorenko, also distinguished himself, and in the minority.

The next was Sergey Tolchinsky, who entered the team's application a few hours before the match.

Such an incredible start somewhat relaxed the Russian hockey players.

They did not realize two more majorities, and the reckoning for such waste was not long in coming.

As soon as the British got a numerical advantage, Liam Kirk left Ivan Bocharov without a "crack" already at the end of the first period.

After a break, Bragin's wards no longer allowed such liberties.

Over the next 40 minutes, the British managed to make only six shots.

During this time, the Russians had 27 attempts to increase the difference in the score.

Three of them were successful - Pavel Karnaukhov, Andrey Kuzmenko and captain Anton Slepyshev distinguished themselves once.

For all of them, as well as for Tolchinsky, these goals became their debut at the World Championships.

North America's second failure

North American teams have not yet managed to declare themselves.

Following Canada, the US team began its performance with a defeat.

She lost to the reigning world champions from Finland.

The Americans did not play a single match before the tournament, and striker Brian Boyle, in general, only in this game first went on the ice for the entire season.

It was he who tried to prevent the Finns from opening an account in the middle of the second period, but the 36-year-old hockey player did not succeed, and Atte Okhtamaa brought the team forward.

Nine minutes later, the score was doubled by the efforts of Iiro Pakarinen, who had not scored at the world championships for seven years.

Jason Robertson, the main rival of Kirill Kaprizov in the dispute for the Calder Trophy, managed to return the Americans to the game.

The young Dallas Stars striker quickly converted the majority and closed the gap.

In the third period, the US players pounced on Juho Olkinuora's goal, but he made 14 saves and helped the Finns defend the winning score.

Dangerous Switzerland in the majority

The national team of the Czech Republic, which before the start of the World Cup, could be ranked among the main favorites, has not yet fully justified expectations.

Following Russia, she lost to Switzerland, and with an even greater difference in the score than the day before.

However, if you remember that the Czechs won medals for the last time in 2012, and their rivals have had two finals since then, the result of Saturday's meeting no longer seems so surprising.

Switzerland showed a very good realization of the majority, being able to win back thanks to him in the first period after the goal of Philip Hetila, and then to come out ahead.

At the end of the second period, another puck flew to Shimon Grubets, and for the final 20 minutes he lost the gate to Roman Villa.

But he also had to find out how fierce the rivals were when playing too much.

Timo Mayer and Gregory Hoffman issued doubles while Czech players were serving penalties and set the final score - 5: 2 in favor of Switzerland, which failed to beat the Czech Republic from the 2017 World Cup.

Philip Peshan's charges are so far ahead of Great Britain in Group A only.

Victory return of Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan marked the return to the elite division of the World Championship with a victory over Latvia in shootouts.

The ice hosts, who had broken the resistance of the Canadians the day before, thus missed the chance to catch up with Germany in the group B standings.

During the match, the Latvian hockey players took the lead twice, but each time the rivals from Asia managed to catch up.

In the second case, Jesse Blacker only had 12 seconds to respond to the goal of Richard Boukarts in the third period.

An equal score remained until the final siren, and for the first time in this world championship, the teams had to play overtime.

Although the Latvians spent two minutes in the minority due to the removal of captain Kaspars Daugavins, the Kazakhs never scored the third goal at the goal of Matisse Kivlenieks.

The winner of the meeting had to be determined in a shootout, which stretched over eight rounds. Both Kivlenieks and his counterpart Nikita Boyarkin made four saves and conceded three goals each, after which Aleksey Maklyukov was able to knock the Latvian goalkeeper again, and Bukarts did not realize the retaliatory attempt. Interestingly, Kazakhstan also won its last victory at the World Championship following the shootout. Then in 2016, the Asian team beat Switzerland.