Hungary took on Sweden in their first game of the world championships. The first period brought a lot of excitement as Sweden jumped out to an early 1-0 lead. With Bernadett Németh sitting in the penalty box for cross checking the Swedes went to work and scored off of a shot that was redirected. Denise Husak Asp took a shot from the right faceoff circle that ended up behind Anikó Németh and in the goal. Later on in the period Sweden had a two man advantage when Hungary was caught with too many skaters on the ice and Lili Pintér was called for cross checking. Hungary survived both the 5 on 3 as well as the 5 on 4. With Pintér stepping out of the penalty box she picked up the loose puck and skated in on Sarah Berglind, the Swede goalie but Pintér’s shot went wide of the target. “By killing the two power plays that mentally kept us in the game” said Hungary’s coach Norbert Búzás”. Hungary had another great chance in the period when Tifani Horváth had a 1 on 1 but Berglind stonewalled her.
In the second period Sweden had a chance to make it 2-0 on the power play, with a 2 on 1 developing the Swedish player missed the wide open net as she put the puck behind the cage, not soon after they made it 2-0 when Frida Gradin’s shot found the back of the cage. The game stayed relatively balanced as both teams found thier comfort level. Towards the end of the period with Lotti Odnoga serving a penalty for body checking Jessica Adolfsson took a shot from the blue line that Husak Asp was able to redirect into the goal to make it 3-0 “That was a typical goal for us, she is really good at that, Adolfsson shoots it on net and we just go straight to the goal” said Husak Asp about the way Adolfsson set up the play that she scored on.
In the third period it still looked very much that Hungary could make it a close game, things started to unravel a bit about halfway through the period, 8:24 into the third period Sweden went up 4-0, after a scrum in front of the net with Moa Vernblom scoring the goal. Hungary was able to get one back when Bernadett Németh made a pass from high in the slot to team captain Dorottya Medgyes who fired a rocket from the corner of the blue line through traffic to make it 4-1. Unfortunately Sweden was able to collect another “garbage” goal before the game was over to make it 5-1.
After the game Hungarian coach Norbert Búzás had this to say “unfortunately the opponent took advantage of our mistakes, the girls did everything they could we did our best”, he continued “overall I am happy with the way we played”
“It is always hard to get a good start against the home nation” said Sweden coach Henrik Cedergren “I think both teams were a bit nervous about playing in the first game, but we got a good start, we tried to push all game, we had lot of shots on goal and the rebounds went our way”
Medgyes was the player of the game for Hungary and Sweden’s was the netminder Berglind.
Czech Republic-Finland 4-3 (shootout)
The first game of the tournament already had the first overtime game, Matilda Nilsson scored in the opening minutes to give the Scandinavian nation the early lead but the Czechs tied it up on a goal from Aneta Ledova. In the next two minutes the teams would exchange goals as Emma Nuutinen and Barbora Patckova exchanged goals to make it 2-2 after the first period. In the second period it looked like Finland was still in the locker room mentally, Czech Republic scored 79 seconds into the period when Katerina Bukolska put the puck in the cage. In the third period Finland battled back and Sara Sakkinen scored to make it 3-3, with no goals being scored in the rest of regulation or in overtime the game went into a shoot out. The first shooter Dominika Laskova put the puck past Finland keeper Anni Keisala to go ahead but with no other goals being scored Czech Republic took the 2 points for the extra time win.
USA-Russia 6-1
One of the tournament favorites took care of business in their opening game and they looked like they are in game shape. It took just under seven minutes for the U.S. to score their opening goal Maliya Rodgers found the back of the net. Before the period was out Taylor Williamson doubled the U.S. lead. The U.S. was able to pull away in the second period when they scored three goals, Baylee Wellhausen, Taylor Cianfarano, and Sophie Skarzynski all but a puck past the Russian keeper Nadezhda Morozova. In the third period the Americans took their foot off the gas pedal a bit as Rodgers scored her second of the game, Anna Shokhina scored the lone Russian goal a nice individual effort, Shokhina skated in on the brake away, did a toe drag and slid the puck into the empty goal. “We started off a little slow, once we started moving the puck faster we looked a lot more comfortable.” said American coach Jeff Kampersal after the game.
Canada-Japan 7-1
Canada coach Laura Schuler decided to go with Kassidy Sauve in between the pipes instead of Shea Tiley who got the start against Hungary in the last exhibition game. As expected Canada won easily but the game started a bit slowly for them as the first goal was not scored until the 8:09 mark of the opening period. Victoria Bach scored the first goal but 33 seconds later Suzuka Taka skated down the right wing and shot out the top corner of the net and made it 1-1 on a beautiful goal. Luckely for Canada everything started clicking soon after as Eve-Audrey Picard and Sarah Potomak both scored to make it 3-1 after the first period. The second period was all Canada as Samantha Cogan and Bach both scored, the third period was the same as the second as the Canadians scored two goals again, this time coming off the sticks of Rebecca Leslie and Hannah Miller. “I think our team played well and we took a major step being a more disciplined team, i thought we started off a bit shaky but we settled down and played good heads up hockey.” said coach Shuler after the game.
Standings
Group A Group B
Canada 3 points USA 3 points
Czech 2 points Sweden 3 points
Finland 1 point Hungary 0 points
Japan 0 points Russia 0 points
Leading Scorers
Points: 3- Victoria Bach, Sarah Potomak, Lauren Wildfang, Canada
Goals: 2- Bach, Canada, Denise Husak Asp, Sweden, Maliya Rodgers, USA
Assists: 3- Wildfang, Canada