Faceoff Factor

With Gary Bettman in attendance, the Russia-Belarus game was decided in a shootout.

The Russians held a 56-23 shot advantage over the Belarusians, but still found themselves down 2-0 by 11:53 of the first period thanks to goals by Mikhalev and Dudik.

The hockey gods certainly didn’t help the Russians in the second period as Kovalchuk and Ovechkin couldn’t capitalize on their chances, but Afinogenov managed to score in the second.

Belarusian goaltender Vitali Koval continued to shine in the game, but Ovechkin finally capitalized on one of his many scoring chances and Afinogenov added the go-ahead goal with 6 minutes left in the third period. Ugarov tied the game for Belarus with less than 3 minutes remaining and Koval made a couple of great saves to send the game to overtime.

The 5-minute, 4-on-4 OT session solved nothing, even though Russia had several chances. The Russians finally capitalized in the shootout, scoring on their first two attempts and holding Belarus to only one goal.

It was a thrilling game between the Finns and Latvians yesterday in Halifax, with Edgars Masalskis making 62 saves in a losing effort. Amazingly, he was not named the top Latvian player of the game, much to the displeasure of the 1000+ Latvian fans at the Metro Centre.

In the first period, Finland put on a display in which they seemed to control the play and create chances everywhere on the ice. Despite that dominant performance, it was Latvia that scored first – Darzins at 1:27 of the first period.

Latvia’s main problem was their lack of discipline. They took 7 penalties in the first period alone, which certainly helped Finland to dominate the play and outshoot the Latvians 36-5 in the first period.

Finland finally got on the board in the second period when Pihlstrom beat Masalskis stickside, and Kapanen scored the game-winner with less than 10 minutes remaining in the game.

"Right now I feel empty," said Masalskis after the game. "We worked so hard and my teammates blocked so many shots but there were so many penalties it was crazy."

It wasn’t a pretty win, but the French will take it as they lead the best-of-three relegation series against the Italians.

France started the game strong, but quickly found themselves in penalty trouble. Jonathan Pittis scored on Cristobal Huet on Italy’s third power play. Less than a minute later, the French had their own power play and Trevisani tied the game.

The second period was similar to the first, with both teams making mistakes, but it was France’s Baptiste Amar that scored with 30 seconds left in the period to put his team up 2-1.

Sebastien Bordeleau scored on the power play to lift the French to a 3-1 lead, which proved to be the game-winning goal. Armin Helfer replied for Italy with just seconds remaining in the game, but it was too little, too late.

Slovakia easily beat Slovenia in the first game of their best-of-three relegation series in which the winner will qualify for next year’s WC and the loser will be relegated to Division I.

With Anze Kopitar contained and the Slovenes being outshot 50-11, the Slovaks were finally able to dominate in a game.

Slovakia’s first goal came while on a 5-on-3 advantage in the first period. Hossa tipped Visnovsky’s point shot and Robert Kristan made the original save, but the puck squirted through and Petrovicky scored in the empty net.

Slovakia blew the game open in the second period by scoring 4 goals (Hossa, Podkonicky, Kollar and Ciernik). Robar responded for Slovenia, but it wasn’t enough.