"Only" two points for Russia

26 Dec 2012 | Fredrik Pålsson

Hosts need overtime to beat a strong Slovak team in the last game of the opening day in the World Juniors in Ufa.

Russia needed overtime to beat Slovakia despite having a 2-0 lead. Albert Yarullin was the hero in front of a sold out Ufa Arena when scoring the game winner with only ten seconds left of the overtime. The goal was scored after a late Slovakian penalty with 15 seconds left to play, Russia called a time out and scored the winner just five seconds lately.

But even it was an happy end for Russia there was sure som dissappointment among the home fans that the home team lost a 2-0 lead against a Slovak team that did better opposition than many probably believed.

Russia opened the scoring when Mikhail Grigorenko fed a pass to Nikita Kucherov who went in on goal and got his to stick to puck to beat Nagy in the Slovakian net. Russia seemed better at most aspects in the first period but was only up 1-0.

In the second period it seemed like Slovakia didn't have the nerves of an opening game any more and they came out very strong but failed to beat Vasilevki for an equalizer. And a mistake in the neutral zone gave the Russians rooms for a counter attack and instead of an equalizer the Russian lead was doubled when Alexander Khokhlachyov finished the counter attack.

Kucherov had a great chance to almost kill the game with a 3-0 minutes later but Nagy came up with an important save and instead Matus Matis reduced Russia's lead at 34:12 when he rifled home a loose puck.

Slovakia was the better team and third, chasing an equalizer and after 13-9 in shots in the period and 31-24 over 60 minutes Slovakia finally got an well deserved equalizer when Richard Mraz tied it up with only 36 seconds left to play. A rather weak shot on the power play that fooled Vasilevski in net.

A good Slovak performance to get a point aganist the host and it is also notable the the Russian goalie Vasilevski was given the best player award for Russia boosting the Slovak performance even more, however the Slovak goalie Adam Nagy also got the honours for the Slovak side. The question is if the Slovaks can beat USA or Canada, which will be necssary to reach the quarter finals. Russia sure will need improve if they are to reach their dreams of a gold at home ice.