Germans were two goals up, but it was not enough to beat the Finns

06 May 2011 | David Schlegel

Germany lost for the first time at the World championship. In spite of leading 3-1 over the Finns, Finland won in penalty shoot-out 5:4.

Germany did not win the game against Finland but showed one more time huge improvement over few last years. The Finns scored after 13 seconds when Hospelt deflected Teemu Ruutu`s pass into the own net and in spite of the fact that Finland heavily outshot Germany in the first half of the game, the Germans turned the game over. They were very dangerous and Rankel tied the score after a long lasting pressure in the 15th minute. "It is not good to be down in 13th second. That put us down, but we kept improving during the whole game. We are happy to win one point, because we came to this group to gather points," said German coach Uwe Krupp.

In the middle of the game Felix Schütz and Kai Hospelt scored two goals within one minute and Finnish coach Jalonen called for time-out. It paid off four minute later when Pesonen luckily deflected the shot taken by Mikael Granlund. Then Finland had a power-play, but did not score, but two minutes before the end of the 2nd period Pesonen found Immonen in front of wide open net and the game was tied at 3. "There were many very lucky goals scored in this game. Germany scored incredibly goals, but I have to admit, we did the same thing as well," said Finnish forward Niko Kapanen.

A minute later three Germans went on two and Reimer took a shot instead of passing and sent goalie Lassila to the bench. Vehanen looked strong for the whole third period. Finland fought hard but German defence with many tall and strong players work very well. In spite of that, Tuomo Ruutu scored from the crease and made it 4-4.

In overtime team "Suomi" outplayed Germany, but no goal was scored. In penalty shoot-out, five goals were scored, including a beatiful goals from Mikael Granlund and the winner from Mikko Koivu. "Germany is a very good team and I am happy that we kept playing and fighting even when we were down by two goals. I am very satisfied with this win, in spite of the fact we did not win for three points," said the Finnish coach Jukka Jalonen.