Jets at the Juniors: Day Two Recap

After a busy day one at the World Junior Championships, day two slowed the pace with only two games on the schedule. It’s always tough in a tournament like this because teams need to have some rest in between games, but they also have a very tight timeline to get all the games played. This causes some days to have four games and others to only have two games.

The first game of the day featured Slovakia and Kazakhstan facing off. This was an unusual world junior game with both teams racking up over 20 penalty minutes. Slovakia had 20 and Kazakhstan had 24 and both teams had players that were given 10 minute misconducts for a hit to the head and neck area.

Despite the amount of powerplays, it was a low scoring game that saw zero goals in the first period and only one each in the second period. With the game tied at 1, Slovakia took the lead late in the third as they scored with only three minutes to go. They held on to win 3-1 and now move to 1-1 in the tournament.

The other game of the day featured USA taking on Germany. This game wasn’t supposed to be close, but Germany had other things in mind.

They took the lead two minutes into the game to stun the Americans. The US would fight back and take the lead by the end of the first period. The second period started the same way as the US took an early penalty and Germany capitalized to tie the game. Germany scored again midway through the second to take their second lead of the game. However, Germany was unable to hold of the American attack in the second half of the game as the US scored two goals in the second half of the second period and another two goals in the third to take the game 6-3. The US also move to 1-1 in the tournament.

As for the Jets prospects, they are both taking the ice today. Heinola and the Finns are taking on Slovakia in the first game of the day while Gustafsson and the Swedes are facing off against Switzerland in the later game of the day.

Sweden is looking to move to 2-0 while Finland is hoping to get their first victory of the tournament.

The Canadians are playing their other hockey rival this afternoon as they take on the Russians. Russia was stunned in their first game as they lost to the Czech Republic. Canada on the other hand scored a late goal to beat the USA in their first match. It should be a really entertaining game to watch as Canada and Russia always make for a good matchup.