On the second day of the Olympic pre-qualification tournament in Budapest the dutch team played against Lithuania. The difference between the teams appeared only in the second period.
Just like against Croatia, Netherlands started the game quite sleepy. Supporting this, Lithuania scored first and the equalizer came only after 15 minutes.
The second period was much obvious than the first. The „Oranje” scored six goals, the only answer was hit by Kulinesius. The dutch team used their man advantages well, three of the six goals was scored when 5 played against 4.
For the last 20 minutes a Lithuanian coach substituted the goalie, which proved to be a good decision, as Aleinikovas made many good saves. In team Netherlands Kars scored two more goals, he has all in all 5 on the tournament. The final result is 9-2, the Hungary – Netherlands match will decide which team will advance to group F.
Barry Smith, coach: The Netherlands
I was satisfied with the whole game, except maybe the first ten minutes, where we were a little sloppy and got out of our system and structure. But the guys played really well for fifty minutes, they did what I asked them to do, our power play was working very nice and that made a big difference as well. We still got one more game to play, so I will ask them to get even better, even though it will be a tough game tomorrow!
Bernd Haake, coach: Lithuania
Unfortunately we only played ten minutes of hockey today. This is because of our physical conditioning. My players haven’t been spending as much time on the ice as our opponents and this showed today. They could not regenerate from last night, so we were out of shape, which means the brain doesn’t work either. Our opponent was in better shape and had more quality shots then us. Our goalie made some mistakes as well, but this also has something to do with our defending, which was not up to par. We will try to win tomorrow!