Eight goals from Switzerland, a comeback of the Czech Republic and the defeat of Latvia: what was the seventh day of the World Ice Hockey Championship remembered for

Swiss swing

Most recently, the Swiss national ice hockey team disappointed their fans when they lost 7-7 to Sweden and suffered their biggest defeat in more than a quarter century.

But she managed to rehabilitate herself in the next match - Patrick Fischer's wards defeated Slovakia, scoring eight goals, and immediately topped the standings of Group A.

The results of the first 20 minutes did not at all suggest that the match would end that way.

The Swiss made only four shots at the wrong goal, while the Slovaks attacked three times more often.

But at the same time, their discipline suffered, and they quickly paid for this.

In the middle of the period, Rafael Diaz opened the scoring, and the Slovaks for the first time in this world championship were in the role of catch-up.

After the break, the Swiss scored three more goals in equal compositions. Gregory Hoffman had a hand in two of them. At the beginning of the third period, the name of Philip Kurashev, the son of Russian hockey player Konstantin Kurashev, was twice highlighted on the scoreboard. He scored points for the transfer and the goal, making the score already 6: 0. Only after that, the Slovaks, through the efforts of Michal Krishtof, were able to break through the goalkeeper Reto Berru.

The Swiss national team did not calm down on this.

Mislav Rosandic's five-minute removal allowed the scoring extravaganza to continue.

Gregory Hoffman scored a double and scored the fourth point in the match, and Andres Ambül helped him in this.

The 37-year-old striker played the 111th match in the world championships and overtook the Soviet hockey player Alexander Maltsev in this indicator.

More often than not, only the German Udo Kiessling went on the ice, who had 119 games.

The point in the match was put by Romain Loeffel - he scored three points for performance in the match.

Switzerland scored nine points, like Slovakia and Russia, but ahead of them in additional indicators.

Victory in the Czech Republic in the match of the outsiders

Sweden and the Czech Republic are accustomed to watching fighting for medals in the World Cup or at least in the quarterfinals, but on Thursday they figured out among themselves who will close the group A standings and whose chances of reaching the playoffs will be minimized.

The victory in this unhappy dispute was won by the Czechs, who managed to rise from last place to fourth.

For the Swedes, the game began as joyfully as the previous meeting with the Swiss.

In the first period, they threw two goals into the goal of Shimon Grubec - first Andreas Wingerli implemented a counterattack, and soon Ricard Rakell punished the opponents for sending off.

But Tre Krunur did not build on their success, and by the end of two-thirds of the match the score did not change.  

In the break before the third period, a scuffle ensued between the hockey players of the two teams, and four field players from each side returned to the ice. There was more space in the Swedish zone, and this allowed Jakub Vrana to deliver an accurate shot from the right circle. When the Czechs played in full force, and the Scandinavians again missed one hockey player, Jan Kovar and his partners quickly played the puck and evened the score.

Very little time passed, and the captain of the Czech national team helped her to come out ahead.

After winning a throw-in, Kovar returned the puck to the blue line, and from there Lukasz Klok took aim.

Immediately the Czechs violated, and Sweden had a chance to recoup, but at that moment Grubets showed his best qualities.

Before the final siren, the Scandinavians tried to realize the majority again, now by replacing the goalkeeper, but only got another puck into the goal.

The Czech national team won for the first time in this tournament in regulation time, and Sweden suffered its third defeat.

US goals for all ages

In the first match of Group B, the national teams of the USA and Latvia met.

The Americans won a third victory in a row and caught up on points with Germany, which until this day alone was in the lead.

It is interesting that as part of the "Stars and Stripes" hockey players scored goals, one of whom is two times younger than the other.

For the hosts of the ice, the match started out of the ordinary.

The hero of the match with Canada, Mathis Kivlenieks, lost his club in the second minute, and Matt Tennyson immediately seized the moment to open an account.

But the Americans soon committed two fouls seven seconds apart.

Mix Indrashis restored the balance already after the first five minutes.

The next hockey player turned on the siren outside the gates, whose entry into the World Cup was the biggest surprise. Brian Boyle, 36, who had had chronic myeloid leukemia in his life, missed this season entirely without finding a place for himself in any of the NHL teams. The coach of the US national team, Jack Capuano, nevertheless took him to the team, although Boyle had never played for the national team before. In the match with Latvia, he finally justified the coaching confidence. At the 15th minute, the striker began another shift and immediately transferred the puck into the gate of Kivlenieks.

It took the Latvians less than two minutes to win back, but they did not achieve more in this meeting.

In the second period, the American team literally locked the rivals in their zone, throwing them with a score of 14: 4.

Such an assault eventually brought two more goals.

The first was designed by Trevor Moore, and the second - by the youngest player in the composition of the American Matthew Beniers.

An 18-year-old student at the University of Michigan threw the puck out of the net.

It is surprising that in the third period not a trace of American persistence remained.

They made only three shots, but the Latvian national team was unable to establish counterplay and eventually suffered a defeat.

The match ended with a score of 4: 2 in favor of the USA team, which, in terms of additional indicators, was still inferior to Germany in the first line in Group B.

Finnish ascent

Soon the leader in the second octet changed.

The Finnish national team played with Italy, which guaranteed her another three points.

Having scored ten points in four games, the Scandinavians bypassed both Germany and the United States, and their rivals were brought closer to relegation from the elite division.  

However, this meeting did not become an easy walk for the Finns.

The abundance of shots on goal by Justin Fazio did not allow them to lead the score as well.

The reigning world champions scored the first goal only after they were in the majority, and in equal compositions they distinguished themselves only twice.

At the same time, defender Tony Sund did almost all the work for the attackers - he made a double and became the author of the puck, which turned out to be victorious in the end.

Fazio tried to make sure that Italy avoided defeat, and achieved this goal. He made 33 saves and saved 152 shots in just four games - more than any other goalkeeper. True, the Italian goalkeeper misses an average of 4.27 goals, which none of his colleagues in the role does not allow.