The Swiss winning streak continues

After three wins against the top three sides it was time for Switzerland to play against a team that they should beat. A task that some believed would be harder than playing without pressure as in the three previous games. But the Swiss handled it well and won easily in a one-sided game.

Otherwise the underdogs had a good start when Rok Pajic opened the scoring at 6:13. But later Slovenia had penalty troubles with three straight penalties and Luca Conti, Simon Bodenmann and Denis Hollenstein all had one goal and two assists when Switzerland's second line scored three unanswered goals, two of them on the power play. All three goals were scored in similar ways, with finishes from close range after rebounds from Andrej Hocevar who did his first start of the tournament in the Slovenian net.

Slovenia made it 1-0. Photo: Michal Eger

"In the first 15 minutes we played well and had confidence but then the Swiss scored three quick goals. The last 40 minutes both teams just played the game off", Slovenia's Marcel Rodman said. His coach Matzaj Kopitar was not pleased with the play in front of the own net. "They scored almost all their goals in front of our goal. We were just not strong enough".

Luca Cunti gave Switzerland the lead. Photo: Michal Eger

The second period went on to be a quite boring where switzerland was in full control bu didn't create much until Denis Hollenstein got his second goal of the game deflecting a shot from Julian Walker for 4-1 at 31:20. After that goal Slovenia gave up while Switzerland continued to add goals.

Swiss fans celebrates. Photo: Michal Eger

A goalie change after two periods for Slovenia didn't help much and at the end the final score was 7-1 after the three last goals were scored by Moser, Ambühl and Surri.

Coach Kopitar was very impressed by his opponents in the game "We saw a demonstration of modern hockey. I can't find any weakness in this team"

Switzerland seems to be heading for the quarter finals while Slovenia's hope top avoid relegation to Division 1 are getting smaller and smaller, now being force to at least beat one of Sweden, Canada and Czech Republic.

But Swiss veteran Martin Plüss don't want to look at playoff round yet. "Of course it's a good start but we have three games left that we want to win first".

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