Germans jump into second in Group

If Poland ends up being relegated following the IIHF World Championship, it can look no further than its powerplay as a big reason why.

Once again, Poland stuck with a team at the Worlds but, yet again, the Poles lost a hockey game due in large part to its ineffective powerplay. Poland went 0-for-2 with the man advantage – bringing its tournament total to 0-for-18 – as it lost its second-last preliminary round game 4-2 to Germany on Saturday. Powerplays can either give a team momentum or take it away and, for Poland, it has certainly been the latter.

Germany played a strong game from start to finish but – similar to the United States on Friday – faced a strong Polish goaltender. The Germans won the shot clock tally 35-21 but watched Polish goaltender David Zabolotny make a number of saves on Grade A chances to keep it close.

And, despite a late rally by Poland in the third, Germany played a strong game and were rewarded with three points to sit in second place in Group B with 12 points, three behind Sweden. Poland continues to occupy last place in the group with one point.
 

“Today was a pretty tough game,” said Germany’s Alexander Ehl. “Poland didn’t make it easy for us. They’re a very competitive team. We played our game for 60 minutes and we deserved the three points.”

Germany opened the scoring five minutes into the second when Alexander Ehl took a drop pass from Maximilian Kastner and snapped blocker side past Zabolotny. The puck appeared to deflect off a Polish defender to beat the well-positioned Zabolotny.

With 4:43 left in the second period, John Peterka was awarded a penalty shot when Krystian Dziubinski of Poland threw his stick to break up a German 2-on-0. Peterka made no mistake on the ensuing penalty shot, beating Zabolotny through the five-hole to make it 2-0.

Yasin Ehliz beat Zabolotny on the short side 4:28 into the third to make it 3-0, giving Ehliz his eighth point of the tournament.

Poland made it 3-1 at 13:13 when Patryk Wajda shot from behind the goal line and banked the puck in off German goaltender Mathias Niederberger’s back. Two minutes later, Filip Komorski flipped in a rebound past Niederberg to make it 3-2, sending the Polish fans into a frenzy in Ostrava.

Germany put the nail in the coffin at 16:11 when Peterka scored his second of the game and fifth of the tournament to make it 4-2. Zabolotny stopped Lukas Reichel on a breakaway but couldn’t stop Peterka…