USA, Canada Open World Juniors with Wins
December 26, 2007 | Men's Hockey
The U.S. National Junior Team, with Badgers Blake Geoffrion and Jamie McBain, earned a 5 -1 victory over Kazakhstan, while Canada, with Badger Kyle Turris, posted a 3-0 triumph over Czech Republic, in the opening game for both teams of the preliminary round of the 2008 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship.
In the U.S. game it was a 1-1 standoff after the opening period. Kazakhstan got on the board first at 14:46 when Alexandr Kurshuk tipped Yevgeniy Bolyakin's shot from the right circle past Jeremy Smith with Team USA down a man. The United States evened the game at 19:57 when James vanRiemsdyk tipped the puck past Mikhail Smolnikov at the side of the net. Bill Sweatt drew the lone assist on the play.
Team USA dominated the second period. Rhett Rakhshani put the U.S. ahead for good at 4:58 when he buried the rebound of a Kyle Okposo shot from the bottom of the left circle. Tyler Ruegsegger also recorded an assist on the play. Mike Carman was the recipient of a nice feed from behind the net off the stick of Sweatt at 8:29, a marker that gave Team USA a two-goal advantage after 40 minutes. While U.S. netminder Jeremy Smith had to make only three saves in the period, he made a critical one on Yevgeni Gasnikov from point blank range with just :01 left in the period.
Colin Wilson re-directed Cade Fairchild's power-play shot from the center point at 4:11 of the third period to make it 4-1 for Team USA, with vanRiemsdyk also getting an assist on the play. Okposo closed out the scoring at 17:43 when his shot from the side of the right circle deflected off the top of the glove of Smolnikov and into the net. Ruegsegger began the play by winning the faceoff.
Smith picked up the victory in goal with 17 saves, while Smolnikov made 44 saves in a losing effort.
Team USA will next face Switzerland on Friday (Dec. 28) at 12 noon ET.
NOTES: All Team USA games in the 2008 IIHF World Junior Championship are audiocast live on usahockey.com with Jack Swanson and Jeff Sauer calling the action. In addition, all games of the medal round will be televised live by the NHL Network in the United States ... Brian Strait (Waltham, Mass./Boston University) is Team USA's captain, while Chris Summers (Milan, Mich./University of Michigan), Blake Geoffrion (Brentwood, Tenn./University of Wisconsin) and Tyler Ruegsegger (Lakewood, Colo./University of Denver) are alternate captains
Visit usahockey.com for more coverage of Team USA.
The game was scoreless until John Tavares notched a power-play tally at the 11:21 mark of the second period. Just over three minutes into the third period, Canada doubled its lead and sunk the hopes of the Czechs. Matthew Halischuk scored the important 2-0 goal for the Canadians. With 8:07 left in the game, Tavares put the icing on the cake with the 3-0 goal, allowing the Canadians to breath a sigh of relief.
Canada will take on Slovakia tomorrow, while the Czechs face-off against newly promoted Denmark. It will be Denmark's first-ever top division game at the U20s
