Latvians fought, but lost the game against Croatia in the third period

There is only one team in Division I with no point after the group stage. Latvian players did their best in most of the game, but the 3rd period lost to Croatia 3-0 and that was exactly the final difference.

As expected, the Croatians entered the match in pretty good pace, Marko Tadic hit the post on breakaway after only two minutes of play. However, it was the opponent who opened the score thanks to Rustams Begovs. But just a while after that Tomislav Cunko tied it up.

The second period brought score 1-1 as well. Croatian bench cheered when Roman Skrapec managed to turn the score over. But still the favourite team didn’t play his best at all and Aleksandrs Fadejevs took a very suprising shot, which ended right in the corner.

If the spectators in the small rink were expecting some key moment, it appeared to come in the third period, which was pretty onesided. First of all, Niksa Trstenjak finished his breakaway succesfully, then Tomislav Cunko scored his second in the power-play and after another odd-man rush by Matija Milicic the Croatians led 5-2.

„We are all ice hockey players and it‘s very hard to change the thinking when playing inline. It’s only the fourth year for all of us, we have good guys, good skills, but we don’t know how to play inline. That’s the problem, but it’s getting better,“ hopes Latvian goalie Renars Kazanovs.

Time was runing up for the Latvians, but still they managed to make the end dramatic. When Arturs Batraks scored at 46:04, Latvia pulled the goalie, but couldn’t add another one. Lovro Siseta then closed the score into the empty net. „The game against Slovenia wasn’t good, but this time I think we played very well. Our goalkeeper was great,“ said two-goal scorer Tomislav Cunko.