EDMONTON, AB – Team USA opened their Group B preliminary round action in the 2012 World Junior Championship series sponsored by the International Ice Hockey Federation with a huge 11-3 win over Denmark Monday. The veteran US team was led by forward Charlie Coyle who had a hat trick and Jason Zucker who had a four point performance. Jack Campbell looked at 23 shots and made 20 saves to take the win in goal. The defending gold medalist Russians shutout Switzerland 3-0 in action in Group A play.
Coyle was skating on a line with team captain Jason Zucker and Brandon Saad. In aggregate the line accounted for five goals. The U-20 men’s tournament opened preliminary round action in both Edmonton and Calgary today. In other first day action Canada beat Finland 8-1, Sweden skated past Latvia 9-4 and Russia out played Switzerland 3-0. Ten participating teams are playing in the tournament which features the best hockey players in the world under the age of twenty.
The tournament is divided into two groups. Group A participants include Latvia, Russia, Switzerland, Slovakia and Sweden while the B group consists of Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland and the United States. Preliminary round games are being held in Edmonton and Calgary.
The United States U-20 squad has only two players who are under 19 years of age. Accordingly, the experienced squad is expected to compete for a third straight medal at the this WJC tournament something the USA has never accomplished.
The Yanks overpowered Denmark after struggling through the first period. The teams left the ice for the first break with the United States leading only 3-2 after surrendering two power play goals to the heavy underdog Danes. The one USA team weakness displayed tonight was on the penalty kill. All three Danish goals came on power plays.
After the tight first period the crowd of 13,604 which heavily favored the Danes saw the Americans take complete control in the period two as they scored six unanswered goals in the middle stanza. An early second period barrage caused Danish Coach Todd Bjorkstrand to pull his starting and the losing goal tender Sebastian Feuk and insert Dennis Jensen with the score at 7-2. Jensen finished up allowing four goals over the remainder of the game. The USA team skated off for the second intermission with a 9-2 lead.
The US added two more goals in period three and the Danes picked up one goal for the final 11-3 margin. On the evening the USA got goals from Coyle (3), Zucker, Jared Tinordi, Nick Bjugstad, Kyle Rau, Bill Arnold, JT Miller, Austin Watson and John Stephens. Zucker led all scorers with a single marker and three assists for four points. Denmark got two goals from big Mathias Hansen while the team’s third goal came off the stick of Thomas Spelling. Patrick Bjorkstrand registered three assists for Denmark.
Meanwhile in Calgary, Russia the defending gold medalist opened with a nice tight 3-0 win over Switzerland getting goals from three separate scorers. Alexander Khokhlachev, Nikita Gusev and Mikhail Grigorenko hit the back of the net while a young 17 year old net minder stopped 40 Swiss shots to record a shutout.
Andrei Vasilevski got the shutout in his very first WJC game. He was recognized as the best Russian player in the game by IIHF Officials. His counterpart in goal Tim Wolf made 27 saves on 30 shots and was also recognized as the best player on the Swiss team for keeping the Russians from making the game a real runaway.
After the round-robin preliminary series, the top three teams in each group advance to the playoff round. Meanwhile the fourth and fifth place teams move to the relegation round. Teams receive three points for a regulation time win, two points for an overtime or shootout win and one point for an overtime or shootout loss in the preliminary round.
The top seeded teams in each group after the preliminary round get a bye in the Quarterfinal Round thus moving directly into the Semi-Finals. The other playoff qualifiers play in the Quarterfinals for the right to move into the Semi-Finals. The Quarterfinals and all subsequent action will be held in Calgary with the Gold Medal game scheduled for January 5, 2012.
Action on today features games between the Czech Republic and Denmark in Group B in Edmonton while Slovakia faces off against Latvia in Group A action in Calgary.
Contact the author at Phil.Brand@prohockeynews.com
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