Team Latvia gets the surprising 4-2 win over Switzerland

Before the game there was almost nobody in doubt about victory of Swiss players in this match. But the opposite was true. Latvians opened the score early into the match and then managed to lead over the whole game mainly thanks to great saves made by goalkeeper Elvis Merzlikins.

Team Latvia entered the tonight´s match really well. They got the lead just after 116 seconds of playing when Latvian captain Nikita Jevpalovs aimed the puck right under the crossbar.

In the 7th minute the score was drawn again. Equalizer was scored by Julian Schmutz who managed to break away from Latvian defensemen and put the puck in the net.

This goal was followed by two minor penalties for Switzerland in a short period of time which meant two man advantage for Team Latvia but with no changing of score.

At 11:49 Latvians surprisingly striked again thanks to Martins Lavrovs who took advantage of his solo breakaway and, face-to-face, goalie Nyfeller was left with no chance.

The first minutes of the second period were not very interesting as players were skating mainly in the neutral zone with almost no shots on goal.

But the situation changed in 29th minute with Latvians getting two-goal lead. Edgars Kulda had no trouble putting the bounced puck in the open net after Augstkalns´ shot from the blue line.

Five minutes to go in the second period Lukas Dalmelli cut it to just one-goal shortage taking advantage of the powerplay when Kalvitis was sitting in the penalty box for holding.

At the end of the second period Team Latvia was leading by two goals again thanks to Georg Golovkovs´ well-aimed shot under the crossbar.

Third period was defensively played on both sides and thus the fans who found their way to the stadium in Znojmo didn´t get to see any more goals.

“We did not enter the game well. Latvians had a lot of drive to the net and we had problem stopping that. The deciding point of this game was when Team Latvia got their fourth goal,” stated Swiss captain Samuel Kreis after the match.

Elvis Merzlikins´ opinion on the game: "This match was little bit weird for me since some of the Swiss players are my friends as I play there. But I knew what to expect beforehand so it was okay."