Finland to the semi finals

03 Jan 2012 | Fredrik Pålsson

Finland defeated Slovakia 8-5 in Calgary to qualify for a semi final against Sweden.

Finland was the big favourite going in the game even without help from the Slovakians. But Finland got big help when Joel Armia passed the puck in front of goal where Matej Bene scored in a nice own goal.

Later Finland was given a five on three power play but failed to make use of it. Instead Matus Chovan tied the game at 14:24 but only eight seconds later the Slovaks gave away the lead to Finland again when Roope Hämäläinen scored an easy goal on a bad rebound from the Slovak goalie Juraj Simboch.

But despite a Finnish dominance Slovakia didn't gave up and on a late power play in the first period Marek Tvrdon tied the game with a great one-timer.

Finland look some what shaky after Slovakia's equalizer but a few minutes into the second period their super star Markus Granlund woke up and lead his team to victory. At first he scored a great shot on the power play and just a over a minute later he fed his brother Markus with a pass who finished with a good shot over Simboch's shoulder. Three minutes later Markus added his second goal once again assisted by his brother.

After the goal Slovakia replaced Juraj Simboch who had been unlucky in goal with Dominik Riecicky. He got off to a bad start conceding his first goal in less than two minutes when young Sasha Barkov born 1995 scored his first goal of the tournament. With that goal we also became the youngest player to score at the World Juniors.

After that it felt like the rest of the game was just a formality but Slovakia pulled two goals back to at least put some nerve into the game. Finland's goalie Sami Aittokallio was also a bit shaky giving the Slovakian team some hope of a come back but it didn't happen.

Instead all hope were killed for Slovakia when Matus Chovan was sent off the ice with a hard 5 minutes + game penalty for boarding. Finland took advantage of the chance given and added two more goals. Slovakia got the last word with a last minute consolation goal and the final score was 8-5.

Now we can look forward to a very interesting semi final between the neighbours Sweden and Finland tomorrow.