Russia finishes the group stage with only wins

15 May 2012 | Roman Solovyev

Russia wins against Italy 4-0 and reaches wins in all games at the World Championship, when Italy lost all their chances to survive in the top division.

On Monday Russia and Italy played the last game of the group stage. It was the game of life for Italian players who could lose all their chances to stay in the top division in case of a loss. As was easily predicted the Russian team took game possession and began in the first minutes to create threatens near Tomas Tragust’s net. Italy defended successfully to the middle of the period. Sergei Shirokov robbed Italian defenseman in his own zone, skated towards the net and fed up a pass to Pavel Datsyuk, whose one-timer pulled the Russian team ahead at 10:35.

The Russian team staff decided to use two goalies against Italy, if Colorado goalie Semyon Varlamov played first period, Mikhail Biryukov the third goalie of team made his WC-2012 debut in the second third of the game. Young Russian star Yevgeny Kuznetsov doubled the score at 25th minute when Nikolay Kulyomin made a great pass to his partner on a breakaway. Soon Russian debutant Yevgeny Biryukov fired from the middle range and the puck after re-directing by an Italian stick got into the net – 3:0. Italy got a PP chance later in the period; they even created several chances but Biryukov and the Russian defense played accurately.

Kulyomin at the Italian net.
Photo: Roman Kucera

Another mistake of Italian defenseman during the play in defensive zone lead to another goal Alexander Perezhogin standing behind the net he dished a pass to Alexander Popov who made it 4-0. Italy didn’t lose the game in all aspects, their goalie Thomas Tragust made a couple of great saves and stopped 36 shots from Russian players, but anyway Italy downed from the top-division. Russian goalie Varlamov played only 20 minutes during them he stopped 8 shots, reserve goalie Mikhail Biryukov didn’t concede any goals and stoned 21 blasts with several good saves.

Russia showed a great performance at the group stage became the only team who won all 7 games in the tournament. The next game will be played on Thursday when Zinetula Bilyaletdinov’s team will face against the 4th team of the Stockholm group.