USA Defeats Germany at WHC

In the second-to-last day of preliminary games at the 2021 IIHF World Hockey Championship, the Czech Republic defeated Denmark, 2-1; Russia defeated Sweden 3-2 in a shootout (in a game that saw lightning strike goals in the third period to erase a 1-0 Sweden lead); Norway defeated Kazakhstan 3-1 and the United States shutout Germany 2-0.

That is, of course, the game of importance to us as Devils fans.

Matt Tennyson played 18:30 while Matt Hellickson played 14:33.

The USA had some penalty troubles early but their penalty kill was equal to the task each time. Ironically, their first goal would come on the power play as Germany’s Korbinian Holzer took a tripping call 17:08.

On the ensuing power play, the USA’s Jason Robertson scored from Ryan Donato and Conor Garland to give the Americans the 1-0 lead. That would go down as the game-winning goal.

The second goal saw Germany get into some trouble penalty-wise. It began at 13:48 of the third period when Jonas Muller took a double minor for high-sticking. Three minutes into the penalty, the Americans lost the man advantage when Robertson took an interference penalty.

Those penalties would all be killed off. The killer for Germany came at 19:33 when Colin Blackwell scored from Eric Robinson into an empty net. The Germans had pulled goalie Felix Bruckmann with seconds on the Robertson penalty to get a 6-on-4 advantage. It was 6-on-5 when the Americans scored their second goal.

And 2-0 was our final.

The US now stands tied for first in Group B with Finland. As it stands now, and tomorrow is the final day of group play, Finland, the USA, Kazakhstan and Germany would all advance from Group B and Russia, Switzerland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic would advance from Group A.

Be with us tomorrow as group play wraps up. Switzerland will play Great Britain, Canada will face Finland, Slovakia will take on the Czech Republic, Italy and the United States will clash, Russia will play Belarus and Germany will tangle with Latvia.