Hlinka Gretzky Cup Day 3

Happy day 3!

Hello! This is coming a day late because I was very dead and tired yesterday after actual day 3. Let's get going then,

No Canada games this morning but I was interested in how the Finland vs Switzerland game would go. Finland is always a bit of a powerhouse of a hockey team and that had been shown during the past week.

Switzerland had been showing defensive promise from their game yesterday though there had been very little offense on their front. Going into this nobody expected much.

1st period was scoreless which wasn't too surprising but second period picked up early.

Yanis Lutz, who was the only Swiss goal in the game before, opened up the scoring and bringing Switzerland to it's lead. Finland quickly answered though with Wilmer Kallio bringing them up to a 1-1 tie going into the 3rd period.

3rd period was pretty crazy with Oscar Hemming bringing Finland to their 2-1 lead then not too long after Lou Bachler brought it back up to 2-2.

Thierry Berger gets possibly one of the luckiest goals yet, bringing Switzerland back their lead before Finland's Rasmus Rinne answers it by tying it up at 3-3.

For the first time this week, we have a game going into overtime.

Overtime was tense but it didn't last too long. Sol Fueter got a great goal, bringing Switzerland to it's first win and an awesome upset to watch playout against Finland. Final score 4-3 Switzerland.

In the US vs Germany game it went about as you would expect. The US did a pretty nasty rush through all three periods leaving the game with an 8-1 win.

Wait... 8-1?

Yes! Germany got it's first goal of the week courtesy of Jack Peterka, JJ Peterka's brother. Here's to many more goals for them to come.

Image by Werner Krainbucher

We had two shutouts this afternoon.

The Sweden vs Slovakia game was actually an hour earlier than the Canada vs Czechia game so we can quickly talk about it.

Slovakia, even with the power of love by both their team and fans, just weren't able to handle the pressure put on them by one of the top teams this week. Sweden won in a 7-0 shutout.

Team Canada continued to serve great hockey with their game. We also had Jean-Christoph Lemieux back in the game!

1st and 2nd period were pretty quiet, with hardly any goals or penalties. Liam Ruck did get a goal twelve minutes into 1st period on a frankly disgusting line with his twin Markus Ruck and Mathis Preston. Going into 2nd period with a 1-0 lead, they remained scoreless though Dimian Zhilkin got a five minute major and game ejection for kneeing. Canada was able to keep a clean PK for the five minutes though.

3rd period started with an early penalty for Ryan Lin (I said oh I'm sure) before Czechia finds out they can't count just before the end of their power play.

Nothing actually happens for another six minutes, eleven minutes into the period when Beckham Edwards gets a great wraparound goal, three minutes later Daxon Rudolph gets another goal, two minutes after that Liam Ruck gets his second goal, and finally with just 30 seconds to go in the game, Alessandro Di Iorio gets the last goal.

This brings Canada to a 5-0 shutout and Gavin Betts his well earned shutout.

Tomorrow, Friday, is the beginning of the actual placement matches. At 6:30am PDT we'll have Germany vs Switzerland and Slovakia vs Czechia, then at 10am PDT we have rivalry games of Finland vs Sweden and Canada vs USA.

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!