An early upset always adds some spice. Markus Sieradzkis stepped up with a goal and two assists as unheralded Latvia earned a 5-3 win over Slovakia on Friday at the 2024 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 World Championship.

For coach Oleg Sorokins’ crew, this was a nice improvement after falling 3-1 to host Finland in their opener. Showing opportunism and resilience, they boosted their odds of cracking the quarter-finals for an unprecedented third straight year. The Latvian power play clicked twice.

"We will be in the playoffs, I promise!" said a fired-up Sieradzkis.

"Our confidence is really big," added Latvian captain Krists Retenais. "You can see on the ice how we are playing. Everyone is hyped up, and we’re just ready to rock!"

Shots favoured Slovakia 34-28. Coach Martin Dendis' team rallied from a 3-1 first-period deficit, but, hampered by poor discipline, remains winless.

"It was a tough game and Latvia is a good team," said Slovak captain Tomas Pobezal. "Our play was not good. We have to be better."

The Slovaks were hoping to bounce back after falling 9-0 to the defending champion Americans in their opener. They came out aggressively and outshot Latvia 9-7 in the first period. 

However, the Baltic underdogs grabbed an early lead at 8:43, capitalizing on sloppy Slovak defending. Sieradzkis, a Riga-born Mora IK prospect, snared a loose puck in the slot and beat Slovakia goalie Martin Haronik on the blocker side. 

Slovakia struck back just 41 seconds later. From the centre point, top defenceman Luka Radivojevic set up Tobias Tomik for a deadly one-timer.

Just after a Latvian power play expired, Maksims Haritoncevs beat a lunging Haronik from the left faceoff circle to restore Latvia’s lead at 13:58. Less than three minutes later, during another Latvian man advantage, Oliver Murnieks converted Siederadzkis’ feed from behind the goal line to make it 3-1.

"Maybe our power play wasn’t that good yesterday," said Retenais. "Today we had some meetings and concentrated on our power play."

In the second period, Latvian netminder Mikus Vecvanags showed his mettle when he foiled Andreas Straka and Tomik back-to-back on a 2-on-0 break.

Still, the Slovaks regrouped during a timeout on a 5-on-3, and Michal Svrcek's snipe from the hash marks cut the deficit to 3-2 at 8:28.

"I got the puck and I just sniped it under the glove," Svrcek said. "It went in and I was happy."

At 15:47, Straka potted the equalizer on a rebound. But Latvia refused to fold. With the man advantage, Antons Macijevskis deflected in Retenais's centre-point wrister for the 4-3 go-ahead goal at 16:33.

Slovak forward Tobias Pitka was ejected in the third period for a slewfoot on Dmitrijs Dilevka. The Latvians couldn't cash in during the five-minute power play, but Dilevka got his revenge with the 5-3 marker at 13:46.

Slovakia got a late 6-on-4, pulling the goalie after Latvia was caught with too many men on the ice, but failed to close the gap.

With a fourth-place finish, Slovakia's 2023 return to the top division induced optimism. But now it's time to go back to the drawing board.

Slovakia defeated Latvia in four of their five previous U18 Worlds meetings. Latvia, though, won 2-0 the last time these nations clashed in the preliminary round. In 2019 in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden, future 2023 Worlds MVP Arturs Silovs earned a 24-save shutout.

The Slovaks can't sit around feeling as blue as the seats at Espoo’s Metro Areena. On Sunday, both teams will return to action as Slovakia takes on Finland and Latvia faces the Americans.

"The Finnish players are really skilled," said Svrcek. "We just need to play our game and be creative in the offensive zone, play with energy and play hard."