The Latvian U20 men’s hockey team beat Kazakhstan 3: 1 in the last game of the Group A tournament of the first division of the World Championship in Denmark on Saturday.
After a chaotic start to the game, the Latvians prevailed. Raivis Ansons, Martins Laviņš and Oskars Lapinskis had a good chance to score, but the opponents’ goals were successful only in the 17th minute, when Darls Dukurs scored 1 – 0 in the majority after Anson and Harry Brant scored.
In the middle of the second period, Kazakh hockey player Abilaihan Suleimenov was dismissed for a dangerous game on Lapinski’s knee until the end of the game, giving the Latvians a five-minute majority. However, Latvian hockey players mostly played without passing. However, three seconds before the rejection ended, the majority was realized. After Felix Gavars and Laviņš, Ģirts Silkalns scored 2: 0.
The Latvians also scored the third goal in the 52nd minute in the majority, with Gavar playing the opponent’s goalkeeper in front of the goal after the assists of Ralph Bergman and Anson.
The dry game for Bruno Brewer was ruined by Nick Fennenko, who in the 53rd minute allowed his opponent to “steal” his opponent and Nikolai Shulga to send the puck to Brewer’s guarded goal.
Fenenko was recognized as the best hockey player of the game in the Latvian national team.
The most valuable players of the whole tournament in both teams were the goalkeepers – Brūveris and the Kazakh goalkeeper Maksims Pavļenko, who did not play on Saturday.
Anson became the second most successful player in the tournament with nine (4 + 5) performance points.
He conceded only to Alexander Suvorov of Belarus with 11 (4 + 7) points.
Suvorov was named the best striker in the tournament, his teammate Alexei Kolosov was the best goalkeeper, and Norwegian Martin Junsen became the best defender.
At the start of the tournament on Sunday, Latvian juniors beat their peers from Norway 4: 2, on Monday they defeated the Danish home team 5: 4, lost to Belarus 1: 2 in an important match on Wednesday, and defeated Hungary 6: 1 on Thursday.
Belarus with 15 points in five battles became the winner of the group, Latvia with 12 points, Norway with nine points, Kazakhstan with six points, Denmark with three points, but Hungary without points.
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