IIHF world championships: Russia beat Slovakia 6-2 to reclaim gold after two years’ gap-NHL News
Washington Capitals’ left wing, Alexander Semin, scored twice and had an assist in the first period to help his home country team, Russia, reclaim the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) world championships’ crown after a couple of years.
Russians went on to score three goals in the second period to finish off their opponents Slovakia, 6-2, to claim the world title.
Other goals were scored by Pittsburgh Penguins’ centre and most valuable player (MVP) of the tournament, Evgeni Malkin, Detroit Red Wings’ centre, Pavel Datsyuk, and Montreal Canadiens’ right wing, Alexander Perezhogin and Alexei Tereshenko.
Boston Bruins’ defenseman, Zdeno Chara, scored two goals for Slovakia but was no way near to help them avoid the inevitable defeat against Russia, who went on to win 10th game of the tournament successively.
The tournament featured as many as 16 teams, including Team Canada and Team USA, held in Sweden and Finland simultaneously.
Russians are able to reclaim the gold medal after a gap of the two years, 2010 and 2011, as they were the champions for 2008 and 2009, consecutively.
Following the victory, the players expressed excitement over regaining the glory. Many of them play against each other in the National Hockey League (NHL) and had one of the rare chances to represent their homeland team.
Nikolai Kulemin, who represents the Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL, said:
"We are the Big Red Machine just now. But without Alex Ovechkin and Pavel Datsyuk it would be very hard to score all those goals. And Evgeni Malkin, what can you say? He's the best player in the world, for sure."
Coach, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, was the happiest man, not just because of the win but for the fact that the team had remained unbeaten in the event. He said the team’s performance came as per his plans.
He said:
"I had to remind the team that Slovakia is really good, and that they beat the Czechs and Canada. I'm grateful to my team as they played well, not only in this final but in the whole tournament."
Russians, one of the strongest outfit in the tournament, were further strengthened when a pair of players from Washington Capitals joined them following exit of their team in the NHL conference semi-finals.
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