Kazakhstan gets first two goals in big loss to USA

Despite Kazakhstan scoring their first two goals of the tournament and tying the Americans early, the United States showed no signs of slipping in an 8-2 victory in Victoria, Canada on Friday night.

The Americans will play against Sweden on Saturday in their toughest competition to date, a 7:30 PM PT start in Victoria. Kazakhstan will have a day off before resuming their World Junior journey with a game against Slovakia on Sunday evening, with their final game set for Monday at 3:30 PM against the Swedes.

Typically, Oliver Wahlstrom and Joel Farabee have found themselves with Jack Hughes in the middle when playing for the United States. But with Hughes out “for precautionary reasons”, people wanted to see what the pair could do without him. They didn’t disappoint, Under two minutes into the game, Ryan Poehling won the faceoff, only to have Wahlstrom pick it up immediately and shoot it over Vladislav Nurek before Nurek was aware of the play.

But 18 seconds later after a poor defensive effort by the Americans, Kazakhstan managed to score their first goal of the tournament. Andrei Buyalski would score on the breakaway, pulling off a nice move on Cayden Primeau to score Kazakhstan’s first goal at the top division of the World Juniors since Konstantin Savenkov scored on January 4th, 2009 against Latvia in a 5-1 loss that saw Kazakhstan relegated to Division IA for nearly a full decade.

But then, the Farabee show would get underway. At 5:13 on the power play, Farabee took a pass from Jason Robertson and beat Nurek over his glove hand, giving the Americans the lead back.

At the eight-minute mark, Kazakhstan made the surprising decision to replace Nurek with Demid Yeremeyev, who made over 50 stops against Finland on Thursday evening. On the first shot against him, Farabee got his second of the night after taking the puck left by Robertson in the slot and tapping a weak backhander down low to make it 3-1 at 8:53.

12 minutes into the period, Farabee completed the hat-trick. With no defence to stop him, Farabee finished off a play started by Robertson and pushed the puck between the legs of Yeremeyev, giving USA the 4-1 lead heading into the first intermission.

Nearly six minutes into the second, the Americans scored again. This time, Alexander Chmelevski scored after diving in the slot after a pass from Poehling, sending the puck in the net before Yeremeyev could react to make it 5-1.

Poehling would get a goal on an individual effort at the halfway point while playing shorthanded. The Montreal Canadiens prospect would strip a Kazakh defender of the puck at the blueline and beat Yeremeyev through the legs, putting USA up by five.

Vancouver Canucks prospect Tyler Madden would score his first World Junior goal with a great shot with under eight minutes left in the second. It wasn’t immediately called a goal, with play resuming despite a protest from the Americans on the ice, but after further review, it was determined that Madden skated around the net and shot the puck top corner over Yeremeyev, ending his night on USA’s 35th shot of the game in favour of a return by Nurek.

Just 23 seconds into the third, USA scored again. Robertson would get his fourth assist of the night after finding Josh Norris in the slot, with Norris sending a quick wrister through Nurek’s legs to make it 8-1.

Before the game was over, Kazakhstan would add an extra goal to get the crowd excited in Victoria. Valeri Orekhov, who set up the team's first goalie earlier in the game, would take a shot on net that was stopped by Primeau, with the Canadiens prospect kicking the puck out to Dmitri Mitenkov, who scored on the rebound. The celebration was electric, with Mitenkov holding the crest of his jersey in pride as he scored his first goal of the tournament. USA wouldn't relent their pressure, but neither team found the back of the net in the dying minutes of the game, with the Americans escaping with an 8-2 victory.

Tweets by @eurohockey