photo: © International Ice Hockey Federation
France, Kazakhstan and Austria earn victories
France, Kazakhstan, and Austria earned victories on Day 1 of the 2024 Ice Hockey U20 World Championship in Budapest, Hungary.
The tournament will continue on Monday with France taking on Japan, Kazakhstan squaring off against Denmark and Austria facing host Hungary.
FRANCE 6, DENMARK 4
Phileas Perrenoud scored a pair of goals, leading France to victory.
Valentin Grossetete got the game-winner with 5:02 left in the game. Mathis Dufour fed Grossetete the puck with a cross-ice pass. Grossetete went around the net and snuck the puck behind Denmark goaltender Kristers Steinberg.
Marius Andersen gave Denmark some hope, scoring two goals within a span of 1:21. It pulled Denmark to within one goal. France got some assurance from Perrenoud with five seconds left to put the game out of reach.
Hugo Raveaud, Ulysse Tournier, and Mattis Chapuis also scored for France. Oscar Moelgaard and Oliver Marloth tallied goals for Denmark.
The players of the game were Perrenoud for France and Moelgaard for Denmark.
“We needed a good game today,” France forward Emil Tavernier says. “Everybody is happy and wanted the win today.”
While Denmark tried to mount a late comeback, Tavernier said the key for the French team was to remain focused on securing the win. The team now looks ahead to their game against Japan on Monday.
“It will be a good game,” he says. “After this one, we need a good recovery. It’s going to be a hard game tomorrow, so we need to be ready.”
As for Denmark, the team battled nerves. The team recognized that France capitalized on some penalties. While they played well in the remaining five minutes of the game, Denmark captain Anton Stenbakken said the team should have put forth a 60-minute effort.
“We started to play better at the end of the first period, but then in the second period, we talked about playing our system instead of being stressed out,” he says. “We didn’t succeed with that and ended up with a lot of panic situations. We took a couple of penalties that we should not have taken in a game like this because we know they are dangerous on the power play.”
KAZAKHSTAN 5, HUNGARY 2
Artyom Avdeyenko scored the game-winner in the third period, and Vsevolod Logvin added a pair of assurance goals for Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan enjoyed a two-goal lead in the first period with goals from Davlat…
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