Russia beats Germany and earns 5th place

Saturday´s only game didn´t promise anything at all. Many expected Russia to beat Germany easily, but their last meeting, which occured in the group stage, proved the Germans to be able to beat even such a difficult opponent. And most of the game, Germany was the better team, but just couldn´t get many scoring chances.

The Russians eventually found a way through in the action-packed opening frame, at one time Alexander Barabanov was really close to scoring on the rebound of a hard dump-in. On the other way, Nalimov still had some work to do as Frederik Tiffels was patient with the puck on the doorstep, but not as patient as the Russian netminder.

Later in the first, Alexei Bereglazov got very close to opening the scoring, but his long blast hits the crossbar. With four minutes left in the period, on a delayed call against Russia, Frederik Tiffels decided to just fire the puck on net from his own blueline and the shot found the back of the net as Nalimov missed it with his catching glove and it was 1-0 for Germany.

"It was a rare goal and I´m happy to score it against Russia," Tiffels said.

The Germans started the second two men short, but it didn´t prevent them from keeping the momentum and getting into chances. Anyway, Nalimov seemed to be over the big mistake and stopped all the opportunities. At the other end, there was a couple of scoring chances and one of them ended up in the back of the net when Arseni Khatsei scored on a rebound to tie the score.

"We wanted to play the same way as against Canada, but we couldn´t get into shape," Khatsei said. "I wanted to get the hat trick, but I wasn´t lucky enough."

And the fourth-liner became an unlikely hero for Russia later in the frame. We are talking about Arseni Khatsei, whose shot trickled through the five-hole and just barely crossed the goal line to give Russia a 2-1 lead. Daniil Zharkov could have made it a two-goal lead for Russia later in the period, but that time, goalie Marvin Cupper had it covered.

The Russians owned the third period and early into it, Alexei Filippov received a nice cross-ice pass and fired the puck off the iron. In the middle of the frame, Frederik Tiffels bumped a man hard into the boards and received a major penalty for cross checking and a game misconduct.

"I didn´t want to injure him, I was just backchecking and then we touched and he fell down," Tiffels explained. "It was a pity that he got injured because I didn´t really hit him hard and I didn´t even crosscheck him."

On the ensuing power play, the Russians sealed the deal. Valeri Nichushkin immediately made it a two-goal lead after a nice pass from Filippov and then, 13 seconds later, Andrei Mironov blasted one from the blueline and past Cupper to close the scoring of the game.