Jure Stolar’s hattrick helped Slovenia to smash the Latvians

Slovenia proved their role of a stronger team in the encounter with Latvia, which managed to react on an early goal against, but couldn’t push the Slovenians for a longer time. On the other side, the Southern Europeans scored some more and made it a comfort win in the end.

The Slovenians started better and pushed right from the opening face-off. They even scored inside first five minutes, when Mateuz Erman finished a 2-on-goalie situation with a precise shot off the bar. Latvia got into the game later, when both teams played shorthanded. More of space was a good factor for the Latvian team and Artjoms Ogorodnikovs took advantage of it as he wristed the puck behind Pavlic from a long distance.

Slovenia kept on playing their game and after the first break, they took their lead back. Matic Kraj stood at the end of a nice passing play of his team and made it 2:1.

The Latvians could have equalized immediately, but Konisevs missed the goal from a great position. For more, Jure Sotlar increased the gap just two minutes later after a nice set-up by Krivic and Slovenia got two goals in front.

It looked like a sure win for the Southern Europeans when Jure Stolar added his second one right after the halftime break, but the Latvians came with an early response. At first, August Vasilonoks found a gap between Pavlic’s pads as going in a solo breakaway and it took only two more minutes to pull another one down as Vladislav Konisevs scored from circles.

Slovenia was under pressure and it’s hard to say what would happen if Sancovojs wasn’t sent out for holding. Domen Vedlin scored a powerplay goal and calmed his team down. His teammates then managed to take control over the game once again.

Before the third horn, Jure Stolar had two more chances to score. He only hit a bar in the first one, but he has got his much desired hattrick goal with the second one.

The Latvians decided to subsitute Kazanovs for Kruze in the goal just before the final period, but it didn’t help them to get the momentum, despite some great saves by Kruze. Gal Koren managed to beat him with a deflection on Berlisk’s attempt with less then five minutes to go.

Artjom Ogorodnikovs found a free space among the defensemen and finished his breakaway with a fourth goal for his team, but the Slovenias had it firmly in their hands. Anze Loncar put them back into a four-goal lead after Nejc Stolar’s pass from behind the goal and Gregor Krivic made it done with another one just after a won face-off in the zone.