Razingar and Ticar scores two each when Slovenia beat Latvia

Slovenia had a great start to the relegation round while relegation now is close for Latvia who never has been in the relegation round before.

Janis Andersons (defenceman, who played his first game at the WC) said: "We are in tough situation now, but we cant see just negative things. We played a very good game against the Czechs and won a point against Finland. That was great. Then we should have beaten Denmark. "We have to improve our game and win the next two games. We want to stay in A group. There is no doubt about that."

The game had to wait nearly 28 minutes for its first goal, but then Rok Ticar beat Latvia's goalie Edgars Masalskis for 1-0. Tomaz Razingar scored twice in the second half of the middle period to take Slovenia to a 3-0 lead. Both time assisted by Marcel and David Rodman.



Slovenia killed the game with two more goals early in the last period. First Rok Ticar scored his second goal of the game at 54 seconds, and another 33 seconds later Rok Pajic made it 5-0.

After the fifth goal Latvia drew a bunch of penalties including 5+20 for Georgijs Pujacs.Latvia got a couple of goals for the record. Martins Cipulis scored 5-1 at 51:33 and Roberts Bukarts 5-2 one second before the end.

"We were totally down after our loss against Denmark yesterday. We had a meeting but it did not help us at all. Today, it was a psychological thing. Now we have to work hard to win the rest of the games." said Oleg Znarokos, coach for Latvia

Two of the four teams in the relegation round survives till next year's championship. Slovenia got a perfect start. Games against Belarus and Austria remains.

Some what surprisingly Oleg Znaroks also confirmed he thinks about quitting coaching the Latvian national team after the championship. "I do not think I will continue. We have a lot of problems with our national team. For example, before the championship we had just one center forward on a team and one of our best centers Janis Sprukts refused to play for the national team. To put our roster together is very hard," he said.



If Znaroks was disappointed the Slovenian coach Matjaz Kopitar "We have played with Latvians three times at the championships and we always lost clearly (2-6, 2-5 and 2-8). We have played very good games in Bratislava and that gave us belief we can change it. It was a very good performance from us and it was for the first time we beat any team from the former Soviet block at the championship. We have to be fair and add, that the Latvians had a very painful game yesterday and we had a day off", he said after the game,
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GROUP: Group G (Relegation Round)

#	Club	G	W	W-OT	D	L-OT	L	Score	P
1	Belarus	1	1	0	0	0	0	7:2	3
2	Slovenia	1	1	0	0	0	0	5:2	3
3	Latvia	1	0	0	0	0	1	2:5	0
4	Austria	1	0	0	0	0	1	2:7	0

 

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