Belarus Loses to Denmark

In another day of action at the 2021 IIHF World Hockey Championship, Sweden defeated Great Britain 4-1 in Group A, Canada knocked off Kazakhstan 4-2 in Group B and Latvia and Norway went to a shootout with the Norwegians winning 4-3 in Group B.

But to the game with Devils connections. Denmark and Belarus met in Group A competition with the Danes taking the 5-2 decision.

Yegor Sharangovich ended the game with 17:43 of total ice time.

The Belarusians got off to a quick start with Artyom Demkov scoring from Vladislav Kodola and Dmitri Korobov. It was 1-0 Belarus just 2:12 into the contest.

At 4:48, however, Belarus’ Nick Bailen took a slashing penalty to put Denmark on the power play. Nicolai Meyer would capitalize when he scored from Markus Lauridsen.

The rest of the period saw Denmark’s Matias Lassen taking a holding penalty at 7:26 and, at 10:07, Belarus’ Sergei Drozd taking a check to the head and neck area 5-minute major and a game misconduct. It was a rocky start for the Belarusians.

But the second period saw things on the uptick for Belarus.

At 10:16, Denmark’s Jesper Jensen took an interference call just after the Danes had finished killing off a holding penalty to Nick Olesen.

On the ensuing power play, Mikhail Stefanovich scored from Stepan Falkovski and Alexei Protas to put Belarus back on top, 2-1.

But if things were looking good for Belarus in the second, the third period was an absolute nightmare.

Three consecutive goals scored by Denmark beginning at 4:58 when Matthias Asperup scored from Mathias From and Jesper Jensen Aabo. That goal tied the game at two.

At 7:48, From scored his own goal from Alexander True to put Denmark in the lead, 3-2.

Lauridsen scored at 9:53 from Nichlas Hardt and Matias Lassen to double the Danish lead 4-2.

The Danish onslaught finally ended for Belarus at 12:15 when True scored from Lassen and Hardt to give us our final of 5-2.

It was that flurry of goals that put the Danes in a medal round position at fourth place in Group A. They have eight points off of two wins and two losses with one overtime win to go with a plus-one goal differential.

Belarus stands in last place in Group A with four points, one win, one overtime loss, three losses and a minus-seven goal differential.

Tomorrow, the Czech Republic takes on Great Britain, Italy faces Kazakhstan, Germany and Finland tangle and, of importance to us, Switzerland takes on Russia, Norway faces the USA and Slovakia faces Denmark.