Arttu Ruotsalainen scored at 11:26 of the third period to break a tie and give Finland a tight 2-1 victory over Germany in a critical Group B game. The win gives the Finns 13 points and top spot in the group, while Germany remains in 4th place with nine points.

The result keeps the teams moving in opposite directions. The Finns won their third game in a row as the Germans lost their second consecutive game. The Germans have also seen a steady decline in their output, having scored nine goals in their first game, then five, three, two, and now one.

"The teams we've been playing have been getting better," Tobias Rieder explained. "We started with Italy and Norway, then Canada and Kazakhstan, which is playing well, and Finland, which are top teams. We know we're not going to score ten against Finland."

Shots on goal were only 26-13 in favour of the Finns, who did a sensational job of limiting the German attack.

"They put a lot of pressure on us all over the ice," admitted Korbinian Holzer, the lone scorer for Germany. "I thought we adjusted to it in the second period and made better plays and playing in their zone more, but they play really strong around their net and play a tight neutral zone. It was tough to get in there with speed, and they protect their own zone really well. Overall, they played a hell of a game and made it hard on us to generate offence."

"Germany's a good team," noted Olli Maatta. "They defend really well. Obviously, they've got lots of skill. They've got good players in there, so I think that was a big win for us. We played a pretty complete game. Obviously, we want to score a few more goals, but we'll have the chance to do it. It's just a matter of time. It's going to come."

Ruotsalainen's goal was the result of a turnover in centre ice created by Iiro Pakarinen, who had just come out of the penalty box. Anton Lundell scooped up the loose puck, and made a sensational backhand saucer pass by three Germans, right onto Ruotsalainen's stick, and he made no mistake with the high, quick shot.

The only goal of the opening period came as a result of a Moritz Seider penalty for cross-checking early on. Just eight seconds after he took a seat in the penalty box the Finns capitalized on a nice three-way triangular passing play.

Jere Innala had the puck along the left boards, got a pass to the point man, Tony Sund, at the top, in the middle, and he moved it quickly to the other side where Anton Lundell was stationed. Lundell fired a one-timer high into the net before the diminutive Mathias Niederberger could get over. It was Lundell's 3rd goal of the tournament.

Lundell had a nice chance later in the period to notch another, but Niederberger made a fine right-pad save.

The Germans had only three shots in the period, but their best chance came off the rush that didn’t result in one of those. Moritz Seider joined the rush to create a three-on-two, but when he got the back-side pass he fanned on it, and the puck floated well wide of the goal.

"I think we held on to the puck a lot in the O-zone," Maatta added, "and we played pretty well there. And then when we didn't have a chance to forecheck, our 1-2-2 [defence] was pretty good today, and we broke up the puck. We didn't spend much time in our zone today."

Finland continued to play stifling defence in the second period, limiting Germany to just two shots on goal. That’s the good news for Finnish fans. The bad news is that Germany scored on one of those.

It didn’t look like much of a chance, but Stefan Loibl brought the puck into the Finnish end and dropped it to Holzer. His quick shot from long range at 7:57 fooled Jussi Olkinuora and dipped under his glove with no traffic around.

Shots might have been 19-5 for Finland after 40 minutes, but the scoreboard read 1-1.

"I thought it was a good example of us breaking out the puck with patience," Holzer explained. "Mathias Plachta made a good play off the wall. I just followed the play and Moritz Muller was driving the net and pushing their defence back, which created a lane. I just tried to put it at the net thinking every shot is a good shot, and the goalie didn't see it quickly enough and I was fortunate that it went in."

Try as they might, though, the Germans could not get much in the way of a great scoring chance in the third. Their best chance came off a faceoff to start a power play in the third when Olkinuora kicked out his left pad to stop a sure goal from Marcel Noebels.