EHT: Irgl and Vrana score twice

17 Dec 2011 | Roman Solovyev

The last game of the second game day of the Channel One Cup was between the losers of the first day, Finland and the Czech Republic. For both goalies it was kind of a debut; Tomas Popperle played his first game for the Czech national team in five years and, for Mikko Koskinen, it was the first game of his career playing for the Finnish national team.

The first minutes of the game came without any stoppages of the time, but the teams didn't any scoring chances. The Czech Republic grabbed a 1-0 lead at 7:44 of the first period when Petr Vrana fed a pass to Jakub Krejcik, who scored with a high shot from the blue line. Fourteen seconds after Ville Uusitalo left the penalty box, Petr Hubacek got a pass from Ondrej Nemec, came into the offensive zone, shot and Zbynek Irgl was first on the rebound and made it 2-0 for the Czech team in the first period. Later in the first, the Czechs gave the Finnish team a power-play opportunity. Suomi needed only 17 seconds to score; Ondrej Nemec behind the net lifted the puck past Tomas Popperle. It was the first goal for Pesonen in his second game for the national team.

With only 8 seconds to play in non-equal squads Michal Vondrka ran into a counter-attack and gave a pass to Irgl, who didn't misfire from this promising position at 22:15. It was Irgl's goal of the night. In the middle of the second, on another counter-attack, Lukas Pech fed a pass to Irgl, who scored again, but this goal was waved off because Irgl scored it with his hand. It wasn't Finland's day at Megasport Arena, as twice they had players called for interference while on the power play in the attacking zone. They also gained a five-on-three chance but two shots were blocked by Hubacek, one by Lukas Krajicek and one more was stopped by the goalie.

"Finland played very well on the power play. I went to every shot that they took, and today I blocked maybe three or four shots," said Jakub Nakladal, who is a defenceman on the Czechs' top penalty-killing unit.

In the middle of the third, Vrana came from the net and scored from the left faceoff circle after a pass from Krajicek with Matti Kuparinen in the penalty box for cross-checking. Vrana then closed the scoring at 51:21, getting his stick on Krajicek's shot from the blue line.

"It wasn't an easy game for us, it was a hard game. All game the score was 2-1, 3-1. We're happy that we won today after losing at home to Sweden," Nakladal said.

This victory allows Sweden to win Channel One Cup one day before the end. Tomorrow the Czech Republic will face the Russian team.
"I met Alexander Radulov today and we spoke about it, and we agreed that it will be a good day tomorrow," Nakladal said.