'09WJ: Still Undefeated

2009 IIHF World Junior Championships Ottawa, Canada
	IIHF Website
United States	Sweden	Russia
Rosters	Roster	Rosters
Statistics	Statistics	Statistics

---

It's all set up.

After Sweden won their third game of the preliminaries (3-0) on Monday - Jacob Markstrom got the night off for the Swedes in their 10-1 victory over Latvia - Russia, Canada and the USA all joined the Swedish juniors at perfection with victories Tuesday in Ottawa.

The victories set up a final high stakes game for each of them on Wednesday. Win and you are automatically in the World Junior Championship semis. Lose and you have to play in the quarters. One step further from their dream of Junior gold.

Russia and Panthers prospect Evgeni Dadonov faces off against Sweden and Markstrom in a Group B tilt while the USA and Matt Rust battle host-Canada in the night cap in Group A.

Matt Rust

USA 12 - Kazakhstan 0: Kazakhstan was overmatched by the United States almost from the the get go as the Americans used a balanced attack to score three in the first, five in the second and four in the third. 17 of the 20 skaters recorded points for the Americans.

Even though it seemed to be a white washing, it took awhile for the Americans to get on the board as an Ian Cole power play goal with 3:34 left in the first to break the goose egg for the Americans. They added two more goals in a span of 2:33 as Matt Rust set up Aaron Palushaj with 2:53 left and Drayson Bowman scored with 1:01 remaining.

The US juniors put it away as Colin Wilson, Nashville's 2008-first rounder, scored back-to-back goals 19 second apart just 52 seconds into the second period.

Philadelphia's James van Riemsdyk (power play), Montreal's Danny Kristo and Palushaj (power play) also scored in the second period, giving the US a 8-0 lead after two periods.

The US upped the lead to 11-0 as Mike Hoeffel (power play), Toronto's Jimmy Hayes and Mitch Wahl all got on the scoresheet. Rust finished off the scoring with five second remaining in regulation as he banged in a rebound while camped out in the crease.

For Rust, it was his third goal of the tournament. He finished the night with the goal and assist and was a plus-2 with one shot on net while skating on the Americans first line.

The United States outshot Kazakhstan 61-10 in the contest.

...more

World Junior Championship Statistics - Matt Rust
Game	Goals	Assists	Points	Shots	+/-	PIM	Face-offs
vs Germany	1	0	1	3	+1	4	6 of 11
vs Czech Republic	1	0	1	2	+1	4	15 of 27
vs Kazakhstan	1	1	2	1	+2	0	15 of 19
Total	Goals	Assists	Points	Shots	+/-	PIM	Face-offs
3	3	1	4	6	+4	4	36 of 57

---

Evgeni Dadonov

Russia 8 - Slovakia 1: The Russians seem to be getting better and better as the tournament goes on and that could be trouble for future opponents. After scoring four in their first game and five in their second, Russia exploded for eight goals against the Slovaks Tuesday. Leading the charge was Nikita Filatov, Columbus' first round pick in the '08 draft, who had the hat trick.

Filatov opened up the scoring just 2:12 into the game, but Slovakia would knot the score at one, 11 minutes later as A Bezak beat Russian netminder Vadim Zhelobnyuk.

M Goncharov put the Russians ahead for good as his power play shot found the back of the net with 1:26 remaining in the period.

After a close first, Russia scored four times in the first 10 minutes of the second to pull away from Slovakia. Goncharov scored 1:05 into the period, Filatov netted his second (power play) 4:29 in, I Golovkov scored 8:32 in and Filatov finished off his hat trick with another power play goal with 9:15 gone.

The final score came as S Andronov scored with 4:23 left in the game and S Korostin scored 1:15 later.

Evgeni Dadonov finished with four shots on net and was a plus-1 while skating on the first line.

...more

World Junior Championship Statistics - Evgeni Dadonov
Game	Goals	Assists	Points	Shots	+/-	PIM
vs Latvia	0	1	1	2	+1	2
vs Finland	1	2	3	2	+2	0
vs Slovakia	0	0	0	4	+1	0
Total	Goals	Assists	Points	Shots	+/-	PIM
3	1	3	4	8	+4	2

---

GROUP A Rank Team GP W OTW OTL L PTS GDF GF GA 1 CAN 3 3 0 0 0 9 26 28 2 2 USA 3 3 0 0 0 9 19 24 5 3 CZE 3 1 0 0 2 3 -2 10 12 4 GER 4 1 0 0 3 3 -7 12 19 5 KAZ 3 0 0 0 3 0 -36 0 36		GROUP B Rank Team GP W OTW OTL L PTS GDF GF GA 1 RUS 3 3 0 0 0 9 13 17 4 2 SWE 3 3 0 0 0 9 13 16 3 3 FIN 3 1 0 0 2 3 -1 8 9 4 SVK 3 1 0 0 2 3 -4 9 13 5 LAT 4 0 0 0 4 0 -21 5 26