Finns hold on for first win over Russia

Despite a quiet second half, Finland managed to take their first victory of the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge with a 2-1 win over Russia on Monday.

The first period only saw 10 shots between the two teams, with Finland taking the 6-4 advantage in that department early. The Finns would be rewarded for it by scoring the first goal of the game after Oliver Suni returned a pass to Roni Hirvonen in the slot after getting attacked. Hirvonen easily redirected the puck past Semyon Sharabarin and made it 1-0 off of a good momentum play for the Finns early at 12:11.

Five minutes later, however, the Russians tied the game up at one. Artyom Grushnikov made a tremendous pass from beside Russia's net, getting the puck down the ice to Ivan Didkovski. Didkovski didn't make a mistake on the play, easily beating Max Väyrynen for the 1-1 marker.

Like in their game against Sweden, Finland found themselves trailing plays after the game hit the midway point. Russia controlled most of the scoring chances, but with zero power play goals on five advantages through 50 minutes, Russia wasn't making the most of their chances at that point.

The Finns made them pay for that. With three minutes left in the game, Valtteri Karnaranta scored on a rebound chance after Joel Määttä was stopped by the pad of Sharabarin, with Karnaranta picking up the dirty laundry to give Finland the 2-1 victory.

Both teams will wrap up round-robin action on Tuesday afternoon, with Russia playing Sweden at 12:00 AST, while Finland will battle Canada Red at 7:00 PM.

Follow me on Twitter, @StevenEllisNHL.

Tweets by @eurohockey