Buffalo, NY - Switzerland powered past the German team in the first period with four goals, and it was all they would need to take home the first victory of the Junior World Hockey Championships by a score of 4-3 on Sunday at the HSBC Center in Buffalo, New York.
“It wasn’t the best game for us, but we got the victory,” said Captain and forward Nino Neiderreiter, who scored and tallied an assist during the first period rout. “All of those goals had such lucky bounces, and dor a moment we were one-hundred percent on the power play which is not usual for us, which was great.”
Switzerland saw goals from Inti Pestoni, Neiderreiter, Romain Loeffel and Luca Camperchioli to give them a 4-0 lead by the end of the first period. Three of those four goals came off of three successive power plays, all within four minutes of each other. Germany pulled goaltender Philipp Grubauer just 17:26 into the game after making only 5 saves on 9 shots, and was replaced by Niklas Treutle.
“Everybody knew that we played bad and we weren’t in the game. We tried to put some pucks over their heads, they had a good goalie, and we lost a important battle,” said German forward Norman Hauner, who had an assist and finished plus-one for the day. “We were not in the game for sixty minutes. I think the last period was good but it wasn’t our best hockey, so we can do a lot more...We can beat every team but we have to show our best effort.”
Germany was able to gain back a goal in the second on a power play goal by Marcel Noebels, and got two more goals from Matthias Plachta and Corey Mapes in the last ten minutes of the third, but Swiss goalie Benjamin Conz stopped 32 of 35 shots to just hold onto the victory.
“We learned that we have to work over the sixty minutes, and be a little bit easier with the puck, and we have to carry that the whole game,” said Conz.
Germany will try and claim its’ first victory against Slovakia on Dec. 27 at 7 p.m., while Switzerland will next face off against Finland on Dec. 28 at 12:30 p.m.
-- Melissa Barrett
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Norman Hauner - Germany
Nino Niederreiter & Benjamin Conz - Switzerland
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