World Juniors daily recap: Settling in

Throughout the World Juniors tournament, we’ll be keeping track of all the action and bringing you all of the results in one place.

Switzerland vs. Sweden

If the tournament so far has been marked by a collection of pretty lopsided games, yesterday\'s slate of action saw things evening out a bit more. We began with a matchup between the Swiss and the Swedes, and it was a wild one! The tone was set pretty immediately in this one, with offsetting roughing penalties taken just 21 seconds into the game, and from there, we were off to the races. Sweden got on the board early in the period on a power play goal from Tom Willander. There was a feeling that Sweden might just run away with this one already, but the Swiss did well to bear down, and they tied the game up on a goal from Kimo Gruber just past the midway point of the period. That equalized status, though, was short lived, and Sweden pulled back into the lead just 57 seconds later, and then doubled up on their advantage before the period was over.

Sweden really took the momentum and ran with it, putting up three more unanswered goals in the second period to make it a five-goal advantage. But the Swiss weren\'t going to go away quietly -- Gruber settled things down in the third period, picking up his second goal of the game, and while Sweden responded to that one (another goal from red-hot Axel Sandin Pellikka), the Swiss got rolling and answered with three more goals, all on the power play. They managed to make it close, but their comeback ultimately fell short, with Sweden coming away with the 7-5 win.

Final: Sweden 7 – Switzerland 5 Next game up (SWE): Dec 31, 5:00 ET vs. Czechia Next game up (SUI): Dec 31, 12:00 ET vs. Kazakhstan

USA vs. Finland

If we loved the back and forth action that this third period brought us, this second game of the day between the US and Finland picked right back up with that thread. Finland found the early juice in this one, responding well from failing to convert on a power play, to immediately taking a penalty of their own, with Arttu Alasiura coming up huge for them with a shorthanded goal to open up the scoring. They clearly had the early edge in momentum, but the US found a way to equalize before the period was out, with Carey Terrance getting them on the board late in the period.

The US came out for the second period with some jump, and pulled into the lead on a goal from Cole Hutson inside the first two minutes. It was a good start, but they let things get away from them just minutes later when Joey Willis took a slashing penalty, and Finland was able to score on the power play to tie things up again. And to add insult to injury, when the US had their shot on the power play pretty immediately following that, and both failed to convert, and then saw Finland score again just over a minute after that penalty expired to restore their lead.

Again the Americans were able to come out after the intermission and find an equalizer (this time from Brodie Ziemer), but despite some good looks created over that final frame, they couldn\'t put another way to pull back into the lead. This one was going to take overtime to settle, but not a very long one, it would seem -- it took just 1:46 for Tuomas Uronen to score, a singular effort, to secure the win for Finland.

Final: Finland 4 – USA 3 (OT) Next game up (USA): Dec 31, 8:00 ET vs. Canada Next game up (FIN): Dec 31, 2:30 ET vs. Latvia

Czechia vs. Slovakia

Czechia found the early edge in this matchup, pretty comfortably getting the better of the chances, and converting nicely on them to pull out to a 2-0 lead before we even hit the first intermission. The Slovaks, despite still struggling to get a high volume of chances on net, did manage to get one behind the Czech goaltender (this shot from Peter Cisar) to get them on the board and close the gap a bit. The bad news, though, is that this closure was relatively short-lived, as Eduard Sale followed that up and scored twice to restore, and then extend, that lead for the Czechs.

It looked like the Czechs had a pretty solid handle on this game, but things opened up when Vojtech Cihar took a major and a misconduct for an illegal check from behind, and handed the Slovaks a five-minute power play with just over six minutes remaining in the game. Dalibor Dvorsky scored on that advantage to pull the Slovaks back within two, but despite all of that power play time, and a run at it with the goalie pulled when the penalty expired, that\'s all the pushback they could muster. The Czech penalty killers came up huge, and stopped the bleeding there.

Final: Czechia 4 – Slovakia 2 Next game up (CZE): Dec 31, 5:00 ET vs. Sweden Next game up (SVK): Dec 30, 1:00 ET vs. Kazakhstan

Canada vs. Germany

The final game of the night saw Canada back in action -- fresh off their huge upset loss in the shootout to Latvia -- against a struggling German team. And while the Canadians didn\'t run away with this game like some might have expected, they did do some nice work to get themselves back on track.

The biggest development came for them on the man-advantage. That is, after a truly abysmal collection of showings against Latvia, the Canadians did some tinkering with their power play setup, and it immediately paid off. They moved Oliver Bonk from the point down to the bumper position, where he\'s found a lot of success in London, and he rewarded them with a goal on their first power play attempt, and the lead in the game.

Things really settled in from there though. The rest of the first period and the whole of the second were pretty even in terms of chances generated for both sides, but both defenses came up big and both goaltenders proved difficult to solve. Canada began to pick up real momentum in the third period, their offense starting to come alive and getting a higher volume of dangerous chances on net. They out-shot the Germans 17-7 across the whole of the period, but it still took them until inside the last five minutes of regulation to put another goal away. Caden Price was the one to extend that lead for them, and kick up the urgency for the Germans in turn. They pulled their goaltender for the extra attacker with just under four minutes remaining, and despite a few good looks, they couldn\'t get anything to go. Canada had this one pretty well wrapped up, but Mathieu Cataford iced it with the empty netter with three seconds to go, just for good measure.

Final: Canada 3 – Germany 0 Next game up (CAN): Dec 31, 8:00 ET vs. USA Next game up (GER): Dec 30, 3:30 ET vs. Latvia

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