Things got tighter on Day 3 of the IIHF World Championship Division I Group A in Bolzano with three border clashes, all won by the teams who entered the day lower in the standings. The result is that all six teams are now within three points of each other, and most still having a realistic chance of advancing. Hungary and Slovenia are tied at the top with six points and at the other end are Korea and Romania with three.
Hungary 1 – Romania 2
In an absolute stunner to begin the day, previously-winless Romania edged previously-unbeaten Hungary to compact the standings a bit. The game was scoreless after 40 minutes and despite being heavily-favoured, Hungary only held a 16-15 edge in shots. However, the Hungarians turned up the pressure with several high-danger chances early in the third period.
But against the run of play, it was Romania that opened the scoring with 10:31 remaining in regulation time, with Balasz Peter ripping a shot from the top of the circle over Bence Balizs’ blocker. Hungary then went back to the attack and tied it with 5:20 to go when Zeteny Hadobas’ shot was deflected out of mid air by Janos Hari and past Zoltan Toke.
“It was a rollercoaster,” Peter said about the third period. “For a long time we were up 1-0 and I think everybody believed we could win 1-0, but when they scored, the biggest thing is that we didn’t give up like we did the last two games.”
With just under a minute to play, Otto Sandor Szekely carried the puck in from the right wing, cut across the front of the net on his forehand and, in close, took a shot that Balisz got a piece of and dribbled across the goal line.
“That was crazy!” exclaimed Romanian captain Roberto Gliga, who drew the primary assist on the winning goal. “To be honest, we weren’t really expecting that but we tried our luck and it was an unbelievable feeling. Even the goal scorer, he couldn’t believe it – I could see on his face.”
Said Gliga: “We’ve taken baby steps. In the first game there were a few glimpses where we played well, and then against Slovenia we had almost two periods where we were in the game, and now we’ve taken the next step where we played the whole game well.”
Japan 4 – Korea 3
In another tight game between regional rivals, three times Korea took the lead and three times Japan answered. The Japanese didn’t take their first lead until the last seven minutes but that was enough to secure the win and leap-frog Korea in the standings.
“This is my first year on the national team so I don’t know a lot about the rivalry, but I know we haven’t won a lot against Korea,” said Japanese defender Kazuki Lawlor, who scored his team’s first goal and assisted on the winner. “I think they were pretty confident they’d beat us.”
“We’re so disappointed right now. I can’t believe it,” said a despondant Korean forward Sangyeob Kim, who had two assists. “We still have games against Romania and Italy and we have to really prepare for them. We need to get some rest and have a good practice tomorrow and get ready for those games now. That’s all.”
With the score tied 2-2 after two, Korea struck 14 seconds into the third period when Don Ku Lee’s shot from the point cleanly beat a screened Yuta Narisawa, who was starting his third straight game for Japan.
Yu Sato tied it back up with 8:20 to go, carrying the puck into the Korean zone and beating Yeonseung Lee to the glove side. And then just 1:27 later, Japan took the lead. Off the rush, Kohei Sato made a backhand pass across to Sota Isogai, who fired home his second goal of the game.
“It wasn’t our set play. We just went with the flow,” said Lawlor. “It was a great goal.”
Slovenia 2 – Italy 0
Slovenia enjoyed a wide edge in play in the first period and a 16-6 edge in shots but there was only goal and it was a bit of a lucky one, with Rok Ticar’s centring attempt from behind the net banking in off an Italian skate. Or was it lucky?
“Yeah, it was lucky but I tried it because I saw there were a couple guys in front and I said, ‘I’m going to try to hit some of them’,” Ticar smiled.
In the second period the tables turned somwhat, with a 9-3 shots edge for Italy, but no scoring. The best chance for the Italians in the first 40 minutes came late in the middle frame, with Daniel Frank unable to convert a pass with an open net in front of him, as the large Bolzano crowd groaned in unison.
“We knew they would try to attack, so we were waiting and trying to create breakouts,” said Ticar. “They got a couple power plays too and we blocked shots, the goalie was unbelievable, and it was an important win.”
Early in the third period, Italy went to the power play looking to equalize and got some great looks but just couldn’t bury a chance. And shortly after getting back to full strength, Slovenia went up 2-0 when Blaz Tomazevic circled the Italian net and found Anze Kuralt at the far post, who beat Damian Clara high, glove side.
“I think at the start of the game, we gave them too much respect," said Italian forward Diego Kostner. "We didn’t press them and they had an easy time coming into our zone and creating chances. You saw when we played our game in the second and third periods, we can put them under pressure and we had some really good chances to score. We need to try to shoot faster and go to the net harder and the goals will go in. We have to do better on Friday and Saturday."
Italy continued to push but couldn’t solve Gasper Kroselj, who turned in a 30-save shutout.
Everybody gets a day off on Thursday, and then on Friday we get Korea vs Romania, Slovenia vs Japan and Italy vs Hungary. After that, everybody will know the situation heading into the last day of action on Saturday.