Austrian goaltender Lorenz Hirn and Patrick Maier watch the puck enter the net in Tuesday's 7-1 loss to the Czech Republic. (Geoff Howe/Canadian Press)

The Czechs are finally in the win column at the world junior hockey championship.

Seven different players scored to lift the Czech Republic to a 7-1 win over Austria in Group B action Tuesday afternoon at Regina.

Vladimir Roth led the attack with a goal and three assists.

The Czechs (1-2) entered the game looking for their first win after letting one slip away against Finland on Sunday afternoon.

The Czechs gave up four goals in a 20-minute span to blow a 3-0 lead and lose 4-3 to the Finns.

Austria (0-3) also came in winless following respectable losses to Russia and Sweden.

Austria's inspired play in those two games made them quick fan favourites in the Brandt Centre but it appeared they had run out of gas against the Czechs.

The two teams swapped goals in the first, with Tomas Knotek scoring on the power play for the Czechs and Dominique Heinrich replying for Austria.

The Czechs struck for three more power-play goals in the second, with Stepan Novotny, Roth and Andrej Nestrasil all scoring.

Nestrasil added two assists for a three-point period.

Tomas Kubalik, David Ostrizek and Robert Kousal rounded out the scoring in the third.

Jakub Sedlacek made 21 saves in the Czech net for the win, while Lorenz Hirn stopped 49 shots in the loss for Austria.

The Austrians' next game is Wednesday against Finland.

The Czechs have a day off before facing Russia on Thursday.

Sweden 4, Russia 1

Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson had a goal and two assists to lead Sweden to a 4-1 victory over Russia, also in Regina.

Andre Petersson had a pair of goals for Sweden, while Daniel Brodin also scored.

Kirill Petrov had the lone goal for Russia.

Sweden (3-0) came into the game well-rested after beating Austria 7-3 on Sunday.

Russia entered the action after a tough 2-0 win over Finland 24 hours earlier, thanks to a 46-save shutout by Igor Bobkov and a goal and an assist by captain Nikita Filatov.

After that game, Russian head coach Vladimir Plyushchev predicted his team would be tired when it faced the Swedes.

"We're going to have a tough first period and then we'll see what happens," he said.

Plyushchev was right. Sweden came out flying, ringing the crossbar behind Bobkov just 30 seconds in, then beating him twice before the game was eight minutes old.

Petersson opened the scoring, teaming with Paajarvi-Svensson for a pretty give-and-go one-timer he actually broke his stick on.

Less than four minutes later, Paajarvi-Svensson made another bid for the highlight reel when he charged down the right wing, stepped over the blue-line and blasted a slapshot over Bobkov's blocker shoulder.

Midway through the second period, the Russians answered back with a pretty goal of their own. Filatov sent Petrov in on a breakaway with a great pass up the middle. Just as he hit the hash marks, the puck flipped on its end but Petrov managed to tame it, then slide it under Swedish goalie Jacob Markstrom to get his team on the board.

The Swedes answered right back with perhaps the nicest goal of the night. Oliver Ekman Larsson made an end-to-end pass to Paajarki-Svensson. The Edmonton Oiler pick blindly touch-passed the puck off to a streaking Petersson, who picked it up and fired a quick wrist shot past Bobkov to make it 3-1.

Sweden added one more in the third, when Brodin jumped on a bad Russian turnover in its own end, then slid it through a crowd and under Bobkov.

Markstrom made 36 saves for the win while Bobkov made 41 saves in defeat.

United States 12, Latvia 1

Chris Kreider scored a hat trick as the United States rolled to an early 6-0 lead and never looked back in a 12-1 victory over Latvia in Group A action at Saskatoon.

Danny Kristo, a Montreal Canadiens draft pick, scored twice, while Jason Zucker, Tyler Johnson, A.J. Jenks (Florida Panthers) and Kreider (New York Rangers) also scored for the Americans in the first period.

To the delight of the crowd, Latvian forward Givido Causs made it 6-1 during a two-man advantage for Latvia at 7:00 of the second period.

But any hopes Latvia had of regaining momentum were dashed just over two minutes later when Kreider scored his second goal of the game.

The U.S. (3-0) continued their offensive assault in the third.

Kreider scored his third on a penalty shot, Derek Stepan (Rangers) scored twice, Zucker scored his second and Jeremy Morin (Atlanta Thrashers) added one more late.

Mike Lee made 18 saves in goal for the Americans, while at the other end Janis Kalnins stopped 50 shots.

The Americans face Team Canada (3-0) on Thursday.

Latvia drop to 0-3 and finish pool play against Switzerland on Wednesday.