Finland beats Russia after penalty shots

Russia needed to win to avoid fourth place and a quarter final against the winner of the other group. They also came out strong and made two quick goals within eleven seconds. 1-0 at 4:26 by Nikolai Kulyomin and 2-0 by Ilya Nikulin on a sleepy Finnish team. After the second goal Petri Vehanen was replaced by Teemu Lassila in the Finnish goal.

Finland's head coach Jukka Jalonen: "We had pretty bad start. We were losing 2:0 very early, but then Lassila had great match. We started playing better had great penalty killing and we won the second period 2:0. In the third Russian were pressing a lot so we tried to keep the game tied and bring it to shoot-outs. We achieved that and we have good shoot-outs in this tournament."

Shots on goal in the first period was 14-3 and everything pointed in the direction of a win for Russia. But in the second period Finland made a strong come back and tied the game. Mikko Koivu deflected a nice shot pass by Pasi Puistola to make it 2-1 at 6:59 and ten minutes later Janne Niskala tied the game with a powerful slapshot.

The last period was even and none of the teams seemed interested to make anything extra for the winning goal and the game ended with a 2-2 draw. Also the overtime was scoreless and the game was decided with a penalty shootout. Both Immonen and Mikko Koivu scored with backhands while Kovalchuk and Morozov missed with poor attempts.

"We had a good start. We had many chances in the beginning but we capitalized only two. It was not enough. Finland played middle part better, but in the end we were close to win", the Russian coach Bykov said after the game.

After two points to Finland and one to Russia today Finland will place second in the group if Germany doesn't beat the Czechs in regular time. Russia will finish in fourth place and will play the winner of Group F, Canada or Sweden in the quarter final.

 

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