Czechia Dominates in Preliminary Win vs Switzerland at 2024 WJC

Czechia finished their preliminary play in Group B of the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship (WJC) with a 4-2 win over Switzerland. Switzerland also completed its preliminary play and was hoping to get another win on the board after their last victory over Norway on Saturday (Dec. 30). As for Czechia, they were turning heads nearly beating the highly favored Team USA but falling to them 4-3. Both teams will advance to the knockout round after this game and have some tough opponents ahead of them.

Czechia kicked off the first period with a goal by Matyáš Šapovaliv at 12:04 while on the power play with a nice feed in front of the net from Matyáš Melovský and Tomáš Hamara. Czechia scored again at 10:05 in the second period with a tap-in goal from Robin Sapoušek while crashing inside the crease. Switzerland then clapped back with two goals near the end of the second to make it 2-2 heading into the third. In the third period, Switzerland tried to mount a comeback, but Czechia did not let up getting the go-ahead goal from Jiři Kulich at 12:47 and then the final goal by Hamara at 15:18 to cap the victory at 4-2. This was Czechia’s second victory in the tournament and placed them third in their group.

Czechia Laying the Pressure

The amount of pressure that Czechia was putting on Switzerland was overwhelming with the final shots resulting in a total of 35-19 in Czechia’s favor. By the end of the second, Czechia was up 26-9 so the differential was still pretty intense. Their power play was the one to point out as they were very in tune compared to their first game against Slovakia and since then have improved a lot. We also saw Czechia show the same amount of pressure against Norway finishing their shot totals in that game at 40-21.

All of the credit for this dominance comes from Czechia’s ability to draw penalties recently which also sparked top forwards Eduard Šalé and Kulich as their go-to players for points heading into this tournament. The Czechs also played with a little more aggression and showed more of a presence in winning puck battles and there was some great face-off work from Šapovaliv who once again got their first goal of the game to set the tone. Overall, Czechia has been waking up and players like Šalé, Kulich, and Šapovaliv are starting to take charge and reignite their energy just the way it was in last year’s WJC.

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