Finland beats Russia in the 2011 IIHF World Championships while Alex Ovechkin unable to score
Finland came out superbly to hand themselves a 3-2 victory with Jarkko Immonen and Mikko Koivu scoring in the shootout this Monday, May 9.
The game was part of the 2011 IIHF World Championships that are currently taking place in Slovakia. The game was important considering that both teams were pretty much even in the standings and both were fighting for a spot in the quarterfinals.
Ilya Kovalchuk and Alexei Morozov were among the unfortunate players to have missed the tie breaker penalty shots. However, the headline of the game was that Washington Capitals’ captain, Alex Oveckhin, was brilliantly defended on the night and didn’t score
any goals while playing in his second game for Russia.
"Penalty shots seem to be good for us in the tournament", Finnish coach, Jukka Jalonen, said. "Russia is a good team, but we tried hard and came back".
With their superb performance, Finland was able to grab the second spot in group E.
On the other hand, the Russians finished in the fourth spot but managed to qualify for the quarterfinals. However, their opponents’ quarterfinal berth is dependent on the result from the game between Canada and Sweden.
Russia started the game on a stronger foot as the dominating force in attacking. They threatened the opposing goal frequently and it seemed certain that they would score.
The Russians with their superb play-making outplayed Finland in the first period, 14-3. They were able to score twice during this period through Nikolai Kulyomin and Ilya Nikulin to have a 2-0 advantage.
Finland came back from behind with splendid offensive play that saw them nearing the goal every now and then. The Finnish successfully scored through Pasi Puistola and then through Janne Niskala to equalize the score.
"We're pretty calm even if we're losing", defenseman, Ossi Väänänen, said. "We'll just go out and play, and we don't think too much. That's a pretty good place for a player to be in".
Although Russia got a chance to score through Ovechkin later in the period, he was unable to score and the regulation time ended with the scores level on 2-2.
The game was finally decided by a shootout in which Finland emerged as 3-2 winners of the game.
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