MVN - Most Valuable Network

Huge Turnaround for Americans in 9-1 Win Over Norway

Halifax, NS- What a difference a day makes. Sunday afternoon, Team USA lost a very tough game to Finland 3-2. On Monday, the Americans quickly put that contest behind them and took whatever frustrations they had out on Norway. The United States scored three goals in each of the three periods for a convincing 9-1 win. Norway’s lone goal came on a power play during the second period. Germany was also in action on Monday, and they used three goals in the third period for a come from behind 5-3 win over Latvia.

Norway used practically all of their energy up just trying to keep Team USA off of the scoreboard for the first ten minutes of the contest. At the 11:12 mark of the opening stanza, Brandon Dubinsky got the offense started. Dustin Brown followed that up 1:03 later to give the Americans a 2-0 lead. Patrick Kane tallied on a power play with 57 seconds to go for a 3-0 USA lead after one period of play. In the second period, Dubinsky registered his second goal of the contest to build a 4-0 lead at the 5:48 mark. Norway got on the board with a power play goal by Mats Trygg at 8:08. A little more than three minutes later, the lead was back to four as defenseman Paul Martin stepped up and put one into the back of the net. 59 seconds later, Zach Parise made it 6-1 in favor of Team USA, and that was the score heading into the locker rooms. 2:33 into the third, Dustin Brown tallied for the second time in the contest to put the Americans up by six. 3:11 later, Boston’s Phil Kessel joined in the fun with his fifth goal of the tournament for a score of 8-1. Enough was enough with 8:25 to go in the game as Brandon Dubinsky completed his hat trick and completed the scoring in a 9-1 final. Robert Esche got a fairly easy win for Team USA with 17 saves on 18 shots. Pal Grotnes faced 18 shots in the first period alone and went on to stop 30 of 38 shots in the loss for Norway. Ruben Smith replaced Grotnes in the third, and allowed just one goal on ten shots. Phil Kessel had one goal and one assist in the game, took two shots on goal, and was plus-1 in 14:54. Mark Stuart saw 13:58 on the ice, but also spent two minutes in the penalty box. Stuart took one shot on goal and was plus-2. Tim Thomas sat out once again.

Already eliminated from the Quarterfinal Round, Germany was looking for anything to cheer about on Monday as they took on Latvia. Despite being out shot 34-29, the Germans found exactly what they were looking for. Unfortunately for them, Latvia got on the board first when Providence Bruins’ winger Martins Karsums set up Herbert Vasiljevs at 5:01. With 1:15 remaining in the first, Germany got their first goal of the contest from Christopher Schmidt on the power play. Latvia regained their lead in the second period at 5:48 on a goal by Mikelis Redlihs. Less than two minutes later, Germany tied the game at two thanks to Michael Wolf’s goal. At 11:39 of the second period, Karsums connected for his first goal of the tournament to put Latvia ahead 3-2. That was the score through two periods of play. The third period was all Germany. Christoph Schubert started the third period scoring at 7:51 to knot the game at three. Yannic Seidenberg gave the Germans their first lead of the contest with his first goal of the tournament at 10:40. The scoring was capped just over two minutes later by Christoph Ullmann for a 5-3 Germany win. Dmitrij Patzold stopped 31 of 34 shots for the win in the German net. On the other end of the ice, Edgars Masalskis made 24 saves on 29 shots for Latvia in the loss. Marco Sturm spent four minutes in the penalty box for Germany, but had one shot on goal and was plus-1 in a whopping 20:02 of action. Martins Karsums had a strong game for Latvia with one goal, one assist, four shots on goal, two penalty minutes, and a plus-1 rating in 16:03.

Monday was the final day of the Qualifying Round, meaning that the matchups are set for the Quarterfinal Round, which will be played Wednesday night. David Krejci’s Czech Republic team starts off the day with a 1:00 faceoff against Sweden in Quebec City. Next will be Norway and Canada battling it out in Halifax. The scene shifts back to the French speaking province for a 7:15 game between Russia and Switzerland. Finishing off the Quarterfinal Round will be the highly anticipated rematch between Team USA and Finland. All games in the tournament can be watched live or archived on WCSN.com.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 1:06 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.