02.06.2014 | Lucie Mužíková

Team U. S. beat home team thanks to White´s hattrick

Two 3-goal-players in one game and very tough battle, that´s the summary of the game between home team and Americans. Despite a great effort of Czechs, Team USA managed to beat them in their hoem rink and added another win.

Game #2 • Mon 2.6. • 19:00 • Minute-by-minute commentary

USA

5:4

Czech Republic

Quarters: 0:0, 2:1, 2:1, 1:2

USA: Kuhn III – Cadiz, Noe, Lee, Kettler – White, Spezia, Rodriguez, Burnett – Thompson, Kavaya, Novak, Siemer.

Czech Republic: Salficky – Strycek, Sebek, Vozdecky, Simo – Kames, Hemsky, Buchtele, Broz – Cap, Senkerik, Loskot, Kubica – Bernad, Hrazdira, Cik.

Goals and assists: 19. White (Spezia, Burnett), 22. White (Spezia), 26. Spezia (Burnett, Rodriguez), 28. Lee (White), 47. White (Spezia, Rodriguez) – 24. Vozdecky (Sebek, Simo), 25. Vozdecky (Strycek), 42. Vozdecky (Strycek, Simo), 43. Sebek (Hemsky)

Shots on goal: 22:25 (4:5, 11:3, 3:6, 4:11).
Penalties: 3:1. PP goals: 1:1. SH goals: 0:0.
Referees: Vikman (FIN), Christiansen (CAN). Attendance: 2000.

Photogallery

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Game report

The U.S. Team entered the game with a great effort. After only 85 seconds, Spezia got in front of the Czech net and forced Salficky to make a good save. On the other side, a good opportunity was also for Sebek, but in the critical moment, the puck jumped over his stick. The first power play went for the home team, but Americans managed to kill it. And they were rewarded for it by the 1st goal of the game. Matt White opened a one man show by skating through the rink just in front of Salficky and didn´t give the Czech goalie a chance to save. The another goal for Team USA came very soon. After a Czech mistake, again White found a loop between Salficky´s pads. Czechs found a respond to a 2-goal-lead of their opponent. Sebek passed to Vozdecky who fired a good snap shot which ended behind Kuhn´s back.

The game was tied in the 25th minute, when Czechs made a great start for the 2nd half. It was again Vozdecky who beat Kuhn, this time by his precise shot behind the upper bar. Despite of the Czech pressure, Team USA took the 2-goal-lead back. In the 26th minute, Tyler Spezia copied White with his one man show and then Lee converted Loskot´s penalty into the 4th goal of his team. Home players didn´t give up anything and tried hard to make the game tied again but Buchtele wasn´t precise in his opportunity. However, he did not have to regret it for long. 60 seconds between 2 Czech goals and the game was started again from zero. The 3rd goal of the European team was scored by Vozdecky who completed his hat-trick and the tying goal was by Patrik Sebek. When everybody was expecting, that the game would continue in overtime, Matt White refused to not complete his own hat-trick and scored the winning goal for his team. Despite a great effort of Czechs, the game ended 5-4 for U. S. Team.

Reactions

Jan Prochazka (Czech Republic): We have expected that the game would be extremely difficult. Team America is among the favorites to win the tournament and it was obvious that this game was about the top spot in our group.It was definitely good that we played a game with the Americans in the group , because our team is putting together during a bit of a run and it was definitely good for us as a review . We did have a lot of mistakes, but we can only learn from it to other games. Another plus is that we are able to deal with the total active for-checking of the U.S. Team . Our team also managed to delete two two-goal lead of our opponent and we showed a great character and inner strength of the team. Now, we can´t underestimate a game with the Great Britain because it has a well- organized game and we definitely want to get all three points.

Joe Cook (USA): It was for us a very tough game, but fortunately we showed much better performance than against the Team Great Britain. We just left everything on the floor, we played well as a team. Tomorrow we will try to confirm the top spot in the group and then wait for the quarterfinals. It does not matter who we get to the quarterfinals . Every opponent is tough here, we have to win 4 games yet to get the gold.

There is no scheduled game.