No problem Russia

04 May 2013 | Henrik Lundqvist

Team Russia had no problem to win their first game of the World Championship when they faced their neighbour Latvia.

For both Russia and Latvia this was the first game of the 2013 IIHF World Championship. Russia were of course big favourites. It has been ten years since Latvia beat Russia in a World Championship. The Russians outshot Latvia 34-15 and won the game with the comfortable score 6-0.

"I think we played very good overall hockey, starting with our goaltender and ending with our forwards. It feels good when you don’t give up any goals and score six", says Russian defender Fyodor Tyutin to IIHF.com.

Another defenseman, Yevgeny Biryukov opened the scoring with the only goal of the first period at 13 minutes.

Early in the second period Latvia's Armands Berzins was sent of for 5 minutes+game misconduct after checking Sergei Soin from behind. Shortly after also Gints Meija got a penalty and Russia got to play 5-on-3 for two minutes. The heroic Latvian team managed to kill the penalties but only 22 seconds after being back at full strength they had to surrender as Yevgeny Medvedev made it 2-0. A few minutes later Alexander Radulov scored 3-0 and a minute before the end of the second period. Yevgeny Ryasensky scored the fourth Russian goal.

Latvia switched goalies in the intermission Edgars Masalskis entered instead of Maris Jucers but that didn't help a lot. Masalskis allowed Ilya Kovalchuk and Kirill Petrov to score and the Russians won the game 6-0.

Ilya Bryzgalov in the Russian net only needed to make 15 saves to earn the shutout.

"In the second period there were not many shots, but it is what it is. The guys did a great job in front of me. There were no rebounds or anything. It was a good game for the entire team," he said to IIHF.com.