World Junior Recap: December 22nd, 2020

 

The World Juniors are officially back.

To start off we saw two pre-tournament games on Tuesday from the Edmonton bubble. Switzerland versus Austria and Finland versus the United States. As expected, there were a lot of penalties as teams are still getting used to playing to the IIHF rules as well as in the bubble. Although both were pre-tournament games, the teams competed hard and the games were exciting. Here are the game recaps from Switzerland versus Austria and Finland versus the United States:

Austria versus Switzerland:

Switzerland was able to come away with the 3-2 win against Austria. Switzerland killed a late penalty to seal the victory. Although these games do not count in the standings, both teams showed up to play. Kamloops Blazer IƱaki Baragano scored for Switzerland in the win. As for Austria, they were unable to score on the powerplay despite eight opportunities. During the game, Austria’s Marco Rossi was given a 10-minute misconduct for a boarding penalty in the middle of the second period.

Switzerland’s next game will be against Slovakia on the 25th at 12:00 MST to open their tournament. Austria will face the USA on the 26th at 7:30 pm MST.

Finland versus the United States:

The US was able to sneak out a 3-2 victory over the Fins in their exhibition match. Although the game was close in score, the Americans dominated the game. The final shots on goal were 45-16. The powerplay was a factor in this game as well as Finland went 2-for-2 with the extra player while the US only managed one goal on five attempts. Once again, there was a 10-minute misconduct as Arthur Kaliyev received a checking from behind penalty just 32 seconds into the game. Although he did not start the game, Dustin Wolf of the Everett Silvertips played 24 minutes and stopped all seven shots he faced.

Finland will open their tournament against Germany on December 25th at 4:00 pm MST. The US will face the Russians to open their tournament right after the Finland-Germany game with puck drop scheduled for 7:30 pm MST.