Finland finished the preliminary round with a 3-0 win over Latvia this afternoon in Ottawa. Petteri Rimpinen stopped 28 shots for the shutout, while Benjamin Rautiainen had a goal and assist for the winners.

The result keeps Latvia in fourth place in Group A. They will now face the winner of the Czechia-Sweden game later today in the quarter-finals on Thursday.

For Finland, the outcome is a bit more complicated for the next several hours. If either Canada or United Staes wins their game outright tonight, Finland will finish in second and play Slovakia in the quarters. If Canada wins in overtime or a shootout, the Finns again finish in second. But if the Americans win in extra time, Finland will finish third and play the loser of Czechia-Sweden.

 

"It was a pretty solid win for us," said Rautiainen. "We played a pretty good 60 minutes. We want to finish in second. I think it's a little better for us to play the third-place team from the other group."

"We had bad puck management, which led them to have the puck more than us," said Latvia's captain, Peteris Bulans. "We were too passive, not aggressive when they had the puck, and that led to a lot of scoring chances. We weren't tight defensively. We need to play simple, send bodies to the net and pucks to the net and get the rebound, deflection, simple hockey in the o-zone."

Finland has now won all eight games between the  teams in World Juniors history.

"We have the puck a lot but we have to get more guys to the front of the net," Rautiainen added. "Today, it was more about keeping them from getting scoring opportunities. But we also didn't have many chances either."

Latvia came out and played the way they have been all tournament, minimizing any risky play and defending well, relying on goalie Linards Feldbergs to keep the game close. But as in the game against the U.S., Latvia allowed the only goal of the period. Konsta Helenius did some great work to bring the puck out of the corner, then made a nice little pass to Rautiainen in front. Rautiainen outwaited Feldbergs before lifting the puck in the empty net with the goalie down and out.

Latvia had only one decent scoring chance, that on a power play. Markuss Sieradzkis put the puck in front onto the stick of Eriks Mateiko, but Rimpinen was there to make the good save.

The second was a repeat of the first except that, despite getting 12 shots, the Latvians didn’t have a particularly great scoring opportunity. The Finns, however, doubled their lead at 7:06 thanks to a screen shot from the point from Jesse Kiiskinen that went over the shoulder of Feldbergs.

Suomi added to their tally early in the third on another big shot during a power play. This was teed up by a soft pass from Aron Kiviharju for Kasper Halttunen, who blasted the puck past the blocker of Feldbergs to make it 3-0.

"Our concentration wasn't good in the first period and that led to their first goal," Buland offered. "Then we had to fight our way back, but we weren't able to."

NOTE: Latvian defender #10 Harijs Cjunskis had blood on his jersey at the end of the first period and had to change to #4 for the rest of the game.