Until June 6, the World Hockey Championship will take place, which will be held in Latvia for the second time in its history. The home team has already shown excellent results in the first matches, gaining the upper hand over both the Canadian and Italian national teams, so on Tuesday and Wednesday it will not have to go on the field.
The planned two-day break will provide an opportunity for Latvian players to breathe and be in the mood for the second part of the group tournament. So far, it has already scored seven points in three games, which opens up opportunities to strive even higher, moreover, Betsafe bookmakers are currently forecasting a 40% chance for the Latvian national team to enter the quarterfinals of the championship.
Last Friday, the home team beat Canada at the start of the World Cup in regular time, with no goals scored (2: 0). For Latvia, it was a historic victory over the hockey superpower, but in the continuation of the championship, the Canadians also lost in the games against the USA and Germany.
Thus, in the middle of the group tournament, Canada faces a very difficult situation in terms of getting out of the group, and there is a very real possibility that Latvia’s main fight for the quarterfinals will not turn out to be a previously planned match against Germany, but an indirect “fight” against Canada. For Bob Hartley’s team, this indicates a certain advantage, because the home team has already scored a positive result in the match against Canada.
However, Kazakhstan has also applied for the quarter-finals, whose players talked about winning gold medals before the start of the championship, provoking a skeptical reaction among hockey fans. However, despite this, the Cossack team has already won two games in its first two games – against Latvia and against Finland. It was the game against Kazakhstan, in which they lost 2: 3 in the post-match throws, that slightly undermined the mood of the Latvian national team, which, after winning over Canada, could have continued the championship with nine points. In terms of performance, the game of the home team against Italy on Monday (3: 0, two goals in an empty goal) was not ideal either, and it seems a little too fast to be in the mood for the quarterfinals or to think about the final medals.
However, it is also undeniable that the Latvian national team has significantly improved its capabilities in the first half of the group tournament. Bookmakers’ predictions have already shown that it is expected to win in the games against Kazakhstan and Italy, and taking into account the probability of such an outcome, Betsafe experts had predicted that Latvia would have a 28% chance of entering the quarterfinals. At the moment, this opportunity has already increased by up to 40%, because although we did not want the result against Kazakhstan, the victory over Canada has far outweighed a lot.
“Taking into account the results of the past days, we can abandon several initially possible final scenarios now. If Canada was singled out as the second most credible candidate for a gold medal before the start of the championship, the team has now scored only two goals in three games and asked whether it has the strength to beat Kazakhstan at all. Finland, for example, failed, but in the meantime the US team looks more ready for the tournament in Riga than Canada. This is bad news for the Latvian national team, as it will have to play the game against the USA this Thursday, and bookmakers’ forecasts with a 78% probability of winning show that the USA is in favor, despite the fact that Latvia is likely to be higher in the group table. Experts’ predictions also point to respect for hockey grandiques even after their failures at the start of the championship, and, for example, the possibility that Canada, which has so far lost in all games, will also fail in the World Cup’s fourth match against Norway, has a 7% probability. Betsafe ”forecast expert Valters Rozmanis.
