Strong start for Latvia at World Championship

RIGA - With two wins from their opening three matches, the Latvian men’s hockey team are right in the hunt for a quarter-final berth at the IIHF World Championships. Losing 5-2 to Russia in their opening game of the tournament on Saturday, Ted Nolan’s men have recovered credibly, defeating a favored German side 3-2 on Sunday night, before claiming an expected 5-0 win over a lowly Italian team on Tuesday evening.

Taking into account the new system that the World Championships is this year employing, Latvia theoretically needs to defeat one more team ranked above them in the world, as well as defeating Denmark – who along with Italy is the only other team ranked below Latvia in their group – in order to qualify for the quarter-finals for the first time since 2009, when they finished in seventh place.

The 12th ranked Latvians were giving their small group of fans who had traveled to Stockholm to watch their team take on the world’s no. 1 ranked Russians plenty to cheer about early on in their match on Saturday, with a Miks Indrasis goal in the 12th minute, putting Latvia in front until the half hour mark had passed.

However, unlike their most recent outing against Russia last month, one goal was not going to be enough to get them home this time, with the Zinetula Bilyaletdinov-coached Russians hitting home twice in the last seven minutes of the second period. By adding another two goals early in the final period, the game was all but in the bag for the Russians.
Scoring with less than five minutes remaining, Kaspars Daugavins gave his side a slight glimmer of hope, but when Russia replied with a fifth just over a minute later, it signaled game over for the Latvians.

Just over 24 hours later and Nolan’s men were showing they had already put the result from a night previous behind them, going up 1-0 on Miks Indrasis’ second goal in as many nights in the 12th minute. Indrasis was then on hand to provide the assist, alongside his captain Janis Sprukts, when Mikelis Redlihs doubled the lead in the 24th minute.
But soon after claiming their second goal, Latvia was guilty of becoming complacent, allowing Germany to strike back with two goals in seven minutes to have the game tied up just past the half-hour mark.
In the final period, the Latvians regained their composure and Aleksejs Sirokovs was able to hit home the game-winning goal after being set up by Daugavins in the 53rd minute.

Following a slow start, Latvia’s third game of the tournament against Italy on Tuesday night quickly became their most convincing, as Edgars Masalskis remained steadfast in goal whilst his attackers got the job done at the other end of the ice. Struggling to find offensive momentum in the opening frame, Ronalds Kenins finally claimed the opening goal for Latvia with just over a minute-and-a-half to play in the opening frame.

Having scored the first, Kenins was on hand with Oskars Bartulis to provide the assist for Gints Meija in the 25th minute.
In the 37th, Bartulis was making the most of a power play to pick up his team’s third goal.
Unquestionably, Latvia’s surprise package at the tournament to date has been 21-year-old Indrasis. Having only appeared in a handful of Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) games for Dinamo Riga, the forward was perhaps one of the most fortunate to make the cut to play in his maiden World Championships. But again, he was justifying his inclusion in his team, making it three goals in three games with the third coming with just under a minute gone in the final period. He then had a hand in completing the rout when he set up for Krisjanis Redlihs in the 43rd minute.

Despite the convincing final score line, captain Sprukts was far from happy with his team’s performance, telling reporters, “I think we played very bad... the result was different to how we were playing,” adding, “we can do much better.”
Fans will take heart from those words and will now be expecting a competitive result when their team takes on one of the pre-tournament favorites, the Czech Republic, on Thursday night.