On May 13, 2019, at the Ice Hockey World Championship in Slovakia, the Russian national team met for the first time with an opponent from the top 6. In the third round of the group stage, the Russians had to fight with the Czech national team, which won their first two matches in the tournament, defeating the teams of Sweden and Norway.
The match Russia - Czech Republic at the 2019 World Ice Hockey Championship was one of the most intriguing in the group stage in the Bratislava group. Milos Riha's charges have a good roster, in which half of the players come from the National Hockey League. Therefore, no one expected the Russian stars to have an easy match against the Czech stars.
Both teams started to play carefully, minimizing mistakes in the defensive line. The audience did not see a flurry of attacks on the opponents' goal from the first minutes. On the ice rink, a lot of attention was paid to power struggle with an overall equal game. The statistics on shots on target indicate that there is no playing advantage of one team over the other.
At the 14th minute, the audience still saw the first goal. The abandoned puck was organized by Russian players who spent a season in the KHL. SKA defender Dinar Khafizullin from the left side made a wonderful pass to the empty ice, from where CSKA Moscow striker Sergey Andronov irresistibly threw on goal. The scoreboard lit up a score of 1: 0, pleasant for the Russians. Another assistant to Andronov's puck was Ivan Telegin.
Shortly after the goal was scored, the Russians earned a penalty. Evgeni Malkin received a two-minute penalty, but the Czechs were unable to take advantage of the given advantage. It seemed that the main task for the Russian team was to maintain an acceptable score before the break. To this end, the charges of Ilya Vorobyov coped. Andrei Vasilevsky kept his goal intact in the first twenty minutes.
The Czech national team started the second period actively, but the Russian national team kept their goal “dry”. In addition, the first dangerous moment was created by the Russians. Nikita Kucherov almost outplayed the Czech goalkeeper, conceding the puck under the goalkeeper's shield, but the defender did not allow the projectile to cross the ribbon.
Four minutes after the start of the second period, the Russians got the opportunity to play in the majority. This time they failed to play the scoring attack. A few minutes later, Gusev brought Kucherov face-to-face with the goalkeeper, but the guardian of the Czech goal did not allow the top scorer of the last NHL season to hit the goal. The goal happened later - Nikita Kucherov himself acted as an assistant to a childhood friend, after which the Las Vegas striker Gusev scored the second goal in the match.
At the end of the period, the Czechs created several dangerous moments, among which was one-on-one with Vasilevsky. However, the goalkeeper of the Russian national team did not allow any of the eminent strikers of the Czech Republic to excel. At the end of forty minutes of the match, the Russian national team won 2: 0.
At the beginning of the third period, the Russian team earned a minority. Ivan Telegin received an unnecessary removal. The Russian national team held out for two minutes in unequal compositions. In a five-on-five game, the Czechs continued to be active in our zone. When the goalkeeper Andrey Vasilevsky was powerless, the crossbar and the bar saved the Russians.
The most dangerous moment for the Russians in the period can be considered a shot by Ilya Kovalchuk, who shook the Czech goal post.
In the last minutes of the meeting, the Czechs replaced the goalkeeper with an outfield player in order to play a two-goal gap. Instead, the third goal came into their already empty net. At the last minute of the meeting, Toronto defender Nikita Zaitsev scored an effective shot from his zone. The final score in the match is 3: 0 in favor of the Russian national team. This result allows Ilya Vorobyov's wards to score nine points out of nine possible following the results of the first three games in the world championship.
