Hlinka Gretzky Cup Day 2

Happy day 2!

I woke up this morning for work around 15 minutes before the first games so I was able to watch at least the first period of the Canada v Switzerland game. The only period where nothing happened.

It's not entirely true to say nothing happened in the first period. I was mostly getting ready for work and keeping an eye on the game when 22 seconds in, Carter Esler (Canada's starting goalie today) got a delay of game penalty. Switzerland wasn't able to capitalize on this power play and their own three penalties within the first period with one flooding over into the second period.

This is when I had to actually head to work and couldn't watch live anymore due to the fact that I'm a manager and can't exactly slack off. Thankfully Sid, my good friend Sid, was keeping me updated on anything that happened during the game. Sid and the multiple tabs I keep on live reporters and twitter let me keep at least somewhat up to date on the game as well as even see clips myself.

2nd period began with a bang with Dimian Zhilkin scoring for Canada eight seconds into the period. He then proceeded to get a penalty for slashing six minutes later. The rest of the period was more or less the same as the first with Canada gaining a few penalties and Switzerland doing the same. Ryan Lin got himself another penalty and to that I say oh I'm sure.

2nd period ends and 3rd period starts up with Canada still on a 1-0 lead. A winning score but not a safe one. Around six minutes into this final period is when shit starts kicking in.

At 6:18 into 3rd period Mathis Preston scores. Literally 20 seconds later at 6:38 Zhilkin scores his second goal. Not one to be out of a conversation, Adam Valentini scores another goal at 7:02. This brings Canada up to a 4-0 lead in less than a minute.

Then less than two minutes later Preston scores his second goal of the game. At this point the Swiss goalie Yannis Zambelli seems to be a bit tired and shaken up from the whole game and I don't blame him. We'll get into him a bit later but he played an amazing game and it's not shown through the score.

Around 13 minutes into the period now, Switzerland gets their first goal on the board via Yanis Lutz. Less than a minute later it was answered by Preston getting his hat trick of the game.

Valentini, Ethan Belchetz, and Ryan Lin would go on to score 3 more goals with Lin scoring his in the final 40 seconds of the game. The final score was 9-1 Canada with nine total goals being scored in the final period.

"But what about shots on goal!" I hear you cry. Well the final SOG count being 45-15 in favour of Canada should tell you everything you need to know. Zambelli made 36 saves with 32 of those saves being in the first two periods. He was named player of the game for Switzerland and I couldn't agree more. Preston was also named player of the game though there were plenty of great players in the game today.

Now, I was not watching the game and if you asked me anything I wouldn't be able to tell you about how they played having only watched the first period, so I got a first hand account from Sid, my good friend Sid, and his list of players who impressed him.

On the Swiss side Sid noted Zambelli for his outstanding play throughout the game and Lutz for being the only visibly offensive player for the Swiss team. And on the Canadian side Sid noted Preston for his hat trick as well as the fact that he could've definitely scored more goals if not for Zambelli and Ty Lawrence who didn't score but was making great plays along both ends of the ice. I trust Sid fully.

During this time the Sweden vs USA game was going on. I wasn't paying too much mind to it but as I headed into work I saw US was up by two going into the 2nd period.

I wasn't exactly following from there but from updates and the final sheet, you can see that the US had a 3-0 lead at one point before Sweden answered with two goals in the 2nd period after them and another three in the final period. Final score was 5-3 Sweden with Sweden joining Canada with a 2-0 streak.

Image from Sid

There's not much I can say about the later games to be honest.

I was still at work and wasn't able to even sneak updates at this point.

With the little stats I have and some updates from accounts online I can tell you the Finland vs Czechia game ended with 4-1 Finland with Czechia narrowly avoiding a shutout.

The Germany vs Slovakia game I can see was quite different.

It was absolutely no goals for the first two periods and majority of the third. Matej Stankoven then got the only goal of the game off a bounce late into the final period bringing the game to a close of 1-0 Slovakia. This is their first round-robin game won since 2022 which is huge for the team and moral. The Slovak goalie (I wasn't able to figure out who was their starter today) got a shutout after saving 22 shots. I wasn't able to find out the SOG against Germany but the fact their goaltender only let in one goal through all of that should be applauded as well.

Tomorrow the matchups are going to be Finland v Switzerland & USA v Germany at 6:30am PDT, Slovakia v Sweden at 10am PDT, and Canada v Czechia at 11am PDT. I will be working once again so updates will be more similar to this one. Tomorrow is also the last day for preliminary round games before we take Thursday off and get into placements from Friday.

You can watch these games yourself online or on your TV if you have the channel and I do recommend it a lot.

In the mean time, I'll see ya tomorrow!