U.S., Sweden and Russia open with world junior wins
Americans dominate Germans while Tre Kronor beats bitter rivals Finland
Last Updated: Friday, December 26, 2008 | 10:40 PM ET
CBC Sports
Team USA's Jordan Schroeder scores his team's third goal on Germany on Friday. (Tom Hanson/The Canadian Press)The U.S. dominated their world junior tournament opener on Friday, beating Germany 8-2.
The Americans' first line of James van Riemsdyk, Jordan Schroeder and Colin Wilson were in fine form, combining for nine points and four goals.
Wilson got the Americans on the board first with a shot from the side of the crease on a two-man advantage that beat German netminder Timo Pielmeier.
Germany evened things up when Toni Ritter found the back of the American net with a wrist shot. Drayson Bowman put the U.S. back on top at the end of the period by scoring his first of two goals in the contest.
Schroeder added an insurance marker 20 seconds into the second period and the Americans pulled away.
The U.S. pelted the Germans with 46 shots. Pielmeier gave up five goals on 27 shots before being replaced by Philipp Grubauer.
The win put the U.S. at 16-4 all-time against Germany at the world juniors.
Sweden 3, Finland 1
With Sweden and Finland sharing a long rivalry, it seemed only fitting that the two should meet on the opening day of the world junior hockey championship.
Thanks to a pair of first-period goals, Sweden was able to take a 3-1 win and bragging rights on Friday.
"It's always a battle against Finland," said Tre Kronor forward Andre Petersson. "I think we did a pretty good job in the game."
Marcus Johansson, David Rundblad and Mikael Backlund scored for Sweden, while David Ullstrom had two assists. Jacob Markstrom was solid in goal stopping 21 shots.
Toni Rajala scored the lone goal for Finland and Harri Sateri faced 20 shots.
Sweden dominated the first 20 minutes, but failed to maintain the level of energy. If not for the goaltending of Markstrom the end result could have been different.
Russia 4, Latvia 1
Russia has found the win column at the world junior hockey championship.
Pavel Chernov had a goal and an assist to lead the Russians to a 4-1 win over Latvia in the tournament's opening game on Friday at the Ottawa Civic Centre in Canada's capital.
"It wasn't a great game on our part, but it was a solid win in the first game," Russia's Nikita Filatov told the IIHF website. "So this was okay. Latvia in an opening game is not easy."
Vyacheslav Voinov, on a power play, Maxim Goncharov and Dmitri Klopov also scored for Russia.
Janis Ozololins replied with Latvia's lone goal.
Corrections and Clarifications
- The score originally reported for the Russia vs. Latvia game was wrong due to incorrect information provided by Canadian Press. Dec. 26, 2008 | 5:36 p.m. ET
