Czechs Bounce Slovakia for Fifth Place at WJC at LinesMaker

Czechs Bounce Slovakia for Fifth Place at WJC

CALGARY - A quick start helped the Czech Repub­lic fin­ish the World Junior Cham­pi­onship on a pos­i­tive note.

A moti­vated Czech team scored three first-period goals and didn’t look back on the way to beat­ing rival Slo­va­kia 5–2 at the Sco­tia­bank Sad­dle­dome Wednes­day night, send­ing the Czechs home with fifth place.

Not a lot was expected from the Czechs before the tour­na­ment. But despite a solid per­for­mance, they were dis­ap­pointed to be going home with­out a medal.

“We would’ve been happy before tour­na­ment, but now we’re not happy because we wanted a medal,” said Radek Faksa, who was named player of the game for the Czech Repub­lic after scor­ing the game’s open­ing goal.

Goal­tender Petr Mrazek, who could be in line to earn the tournament’s top goalie honor, agreed.

“If some­body told us before the tour­na­ment we would be fifth place we’ll take it, but it was a lit­tle dif­fi­cult after the Rus­sia loss (in the quarterfinal).”

The spir­ited Czechs got a shot past starter Juraj Sim­boch before Slo­va­kia could man­age a shot on goal.

Sec­onds after Tomas Hertl missed a one-time oppor­tu­nity while star­ing at an empty net, Faksa ham­mered a shot over the right shoul­der of the Slo­vak goal­tender to make it 1–0 just 5:45 into the game. The goal came a full two min­utes before Slovakia’s first offer­ing on Mrazek, a shot from out­side the blue line at 8:10.

“I saw it was a free puck so I shot for the first time and I didn’t see it,” said Faksa, named the player of the game for the Czechs. “I just lis­tened to the fans. I was excited. It was impor­tant because we were a lit­tle ner­vous because it’s Slovakia.”

Petr Holik made it 2–0 at 13:37. Tak­ing a pass from Petr Straka in the slot, Holik fired the puck over Simboch’s glove to give the Czechs a two-goal lead.

They added another before the period was out. With both Marko Dano (goal­tender inter­fer­ence) and Adam Janosik (cross-checking) whis­tled for infrac­tions on the same sequence, the Czechs went to work quickly with the two-man advan­tage. Vojtech Mozik wired a low shot past Simboch’s glove with 3:14 remain­ing for a 3–0 lead.

Mrazek, who faced an aver­age of 35.4 shots in his prior five games, had to stop just six shots in the open­ing period — three of them from out­side the blue line.

“There were a cou­ple of tough shots there, I had luck,” Mrazek said. “We played very well the first 15 minutes.”

The teams traded goals in the sec­ond that saw the Czech Repub­lic out­shoot Slo­va­kia 14–8.

The Slo­vaks cut the deficit lead to 3–1 after Milos Bubela cor­ralled a blocked Mar­tin Daloga shot and slid it between Mrazek’s pads at 14:17. Marek Tvr­don came within inches of mak­ing it a one-goal game 34 sec­onds later. Tvr­don took a pass on the half wall and fired a shot that beat the Czech goal­tender but not the post.

Dominik Uher restored the three-goal advan­tage with 3:37 remain­ing in the period. After tak­ing a pass in his feet from Hertl, Uher spun around and fired a shot that beat Sim­boch, chas­ing him from the game in favor of backup Richard Sabol.

Tomas Fil­ippi gave the Czechs a 5–1 lead at 2:32 of the third with another power-play goal. With Tvr­don in the penalty box for slash­ing, Filippi’s laser beat Sabol over the glove.

Slovakia’s Matus Chovan closed the scor­ing with his fifth of the tour­na­ment, bank­ing the puck into the net off the leg of Mrazek from below the goal line at 6:24.
With the loss, Slo­va­kia fin­ished sixth, a result Mar­tin Ger­nat is proud of.

“It’s pos­i­tive for Slo­va­kia,” said Ger­nat, a defense­man drafted by the Edmon­ton Oil­ers last June. “After three years, we played in the quar­ter­fi­nal so that is good.”

The win puts the Czech Repub­lic in Group A next year along with the win­ner of the gold medal game between Swe­den and Rus­sia on Thurs­day at 8 p.m. ET. They will also be joined by the loser of Canada and Fin­land in the bronze medal match, also Thurs­day (3:30 p.m. ET). Switzer­land and Ger­many, who won the 2012 Divi­sion I Group A in mid-December, round out the grouping.

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