Finland with hard-earned victory

The French players knew that they had little to lose but much to win against Finland and with this attitude they came out of the dressing rooms. Right after the initial face off they looked for offense and created even more shots on goal during the first 20 minutes than their counterparts from Scandinavia. During their attacks the French stayed not cool enough though when they more than once ended a promising counter with an unprecise pass or a far too early shot that was no problem for the good Finnish goalie Ortio. Finland on the other side stayed far too harmless for such a top team at the start of the match.

The middle period started similar even as the previous one but Finland more and more gained controll over the match. Still France were able to create the better opportunities. At 27:41 two of the French forwards were through and appeared completely left alone in front of Ortio only to be called back for an offside cal - which later during the video replay turned out to have been a totally wrong decision by the referees. Very bitter for the outsiders! Six minutes later Pierre-Édouard Bellemare had the till then by far best chance of the match when he hit the right goal post from within the slot! Just in the stage of the match when France was best the Fins were ice cold during the power play! Vincent Bachet was on the penalty bench for boarding when Janne Pesonen scored the lead for Finland from short distance after receiving the puck from behind the net at 34:41. Just 38 seconds later Juhamatti Aaltonen was able to double the lead after a perfect cross-pass in front of Lhenry. Before the end of the period France caused two more penalties that faced them with a 5 on 3 power play for Finland but they didn't allow any further goals.

In the first minute of the third period Pierre- Édouard Bellemare received a perfect pass right to the net and used a shot from short distance for the 2-1! Int he following minutes France increased their pressure and risked more which led to good opportunities on both sides. One of them was used by Ville Viitaluoma who deflected a blue line shot by Antti Pihlström into the net just in front of Lhenry. Despite great efforts on either side the result didn't change anymore!

With now 8 points the quarterfinal qualification should be a done deal for Finland who now have an excellent chance to win the Helsinki group! For France the race for the quarterfinals stays completely open aswell as the need to get more points to avoid relegation for sure!

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