Eight pucks of Kazakhstan for the period, Finland's entry to the playoffs and victories of the Czech Republic and the USA: what was the 9th day of the Ice Hockey World Cup memorable for

Tolchinsky period

The Russian national ice hockey team won the fourth victory at the world championship.

In their fifth match in the tournament, Valery Bragin's wards met with Switzerland, with which, as well as with Slovakia, they shared the first place in Group A. The game ended with a score of 4: 1 in favor of the domestic team.

The first two periods passed at a very fast pace, but the fans saw only one goal during this time.

Anton Burdasov continued the tradition of his national team to score the first goal in the match only in the majority.

The best scorer of the Russian team has already scored the sixth point in the tournament and came close to the most productive players of the World Championship.

The Swiss managed to equalize the score in the third period, after which Sergei Tolchinsky really entered the game.

First, the striker, in a hopeless situation, when he was thrown onto the ice, was able to sit and pass the pass to Pavel Karnaukhov with one hand, who immediately brought the Russians forward.

Two minutes later, he also scored the next goal after a solo run along the left edge.

And one and a half seconds before the final siren, Tolchinsky scored a double, having managed to shoot the opponent's empty net.

The Russian national team in the two remaining matches with Sweden and Belarus only needs to score one point to advance to the playoffs.

But in order to reach the quarterfinals from the first place, Bragin's wards will still need to win two victories and hope for the defeat of their closest competitors.

Slovakia's retaliatory move

Russian hockey players did not hold the first place in the group for long.

Soon they were again pushed aside by the Slovak national team.

After defeating Denmark, she also scored 12 points, but she turned out to be higher in the standings due to a personal meeting.

The fourth victory was given to Craig Ramsey's wards very difficult.

They were head and shoulders above their rivals, but this was not reflected in the score.

In the first two periods, the Slovaks could not bring the puck into the goal of Sebastian Dam, although they had 23 attempts for this.

Only in the third period, the scattered actions of the Danes in defense allowed Peter Ceglarik to score the puck.

He scored an eighth point for performance and became the top scorer of the tournament, beating the leader of the Danish national team Niklas Jensen.

Soon, another mistake of the Scandinavians led to the fact that after a couple of saves Dam was left alone with Adam Janosik, and he scored his first puck at this world championship.

Slovakia won 2-0 and must also score just one point to make it to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2013.

The ascent of the Czech Republic continues

In the first match on Saturday, the teams of the Czech Republic and Great Britain met in Group A.

Philippe Péchamp's wards finally recovered from a bad start at the World Championship and won their third consecutive victory, which allowed them to re-engage in the fight for getting into the playoffs.

The British could not be considered favorites of the match anyway.

In addition, they had to go out on the ice for the sixth time in eight days.

The Czechs immediately took advantage of the rival's fatigue and in the first period inflicted 18 shots on goal of Jackson Whistle.

Lukasz Klok opened the scoring with the majority.

Subsequently, the Czechs scored three more goals in a row, to which the British responded with only one 23 seconds before the end of the second period.

Liam Kirk - the best sniper of the tournament - this time became an assistant for Matthew Myers.

The Czechs conceded in the minority, confirming the status of one of the worst teams when playing in unequal compositions.

In the third period, Czech hockey players set the final score 6: 1 in their favor thanks to goals from Radan Lenz and Libor Shulak.

Such a high performance allowed Peshan's team to bypass Denmark in the standings, despite the same number of points.

The next time the Czechs will play just with the Danes, and this match may become a battle for a ticket to the playoffs.

Finland in the quarterfinals

The Finnish national team was the first of all the participants in the World Cup to guarantee itself a place in the playoffs.

This came after the victory over Germany in the centerpiece match on Saturday, which had a big impact on the alignment of teams in Group B.

Goals in this meeting were rare - in each of the three periods, the audience saw only one scored puck.

19-year-old Anton Lundell scored in the first.

It only took him eight seconds to realize the first majority in the game.

In the second 20-minute, the Germans had only two shots on target at the goal of Juho Olkinuora, but one of them turned out to be problematic for the goalkeeper.

Corbinian Holzer's goal helped restore the balance.

The last third of the match was not like the previous two.

The Finns attacked less often and even lost in the number of shots, but still managed to win.

Lundell picked up the puck after the loss of the Germans and sent it precisely to Artt Ruotsalainen, who completed the counterattack.

The reigning world champions won by one goal and were out of reach for four teams from their group.

Departure of Norway after meeting with the USA

The second place at the end of the day in group B was the USA.

The Americans won their fourth victory in a row, this time beating the Norwegians by one goal, after which they lost their last chances of reaching the playoffs.

Goalkeeper Jake Ettinger made his debut in the starting lineup of the Stars and Stripes - before that he had already brought victory over Canada, but did not start the game from the first seconds.

The lack of competitive practice did not affect the Dallas Stars goalkeeper in any way.

For almost the entire match, he did not allow the Norwegians to throw the puck and in the end gave up only in the 55th minute, having missed the throw of Ken-Andre Olimb.

By that time, the Americans had already scored two goals to Henrik Höukeland, who was forced to return to the ice immediately after defeating Latvia in shootouts.

The first goal in the middle of the starting period was scored by Conor Garland, who punished the opponent for violating the numerical strength.

The author of the second was Teige Thompson, for whom this match was the first in six days due to an injury sustained in a game with Canada.

Goal extravaganza of Kazakhstan

For the national team of Kazakhstan, the match with Italy was the first in which it could be considered a full-fledged favorite.

And the game, which became the most productive at the World Championship, fully confirmed this.

Yuri Mikhailis' wards won with a score of 11: 3, and at the end of the day ended up in third place in the group B standings.

At first, nothing foreshadowed such a deafening defeat.

In the first period, the Italians even inflicted more shots than their rivals, and at the end of 40 minutes, the Kazakhs were leading with a quite usual score of 3: 1.

But after the break, they scored eight more goals with 19 shots on target.

The most active in Kazakhstan was the 35-year-old captain Roman Starchenko - he scored two goals and assisted his partners three more times.

In just one match, he rose from the bottom of the list of scorers to third place.

The most beautiful puck out of 11 was scored, perhaps, by Evgeny Rymarev - he succeeded in a difficult shot from an acute angle over Justin Fazio's shoulder.

Interestingly, the Italian goalkeeper, after another loss, remained the leader of the tournament in terms of the number of saves made.

True, in terms of the average number of goals conceded, he almost came close to five goals per game.