Slovakia, Germany Both Victorious At Worlds

Slovakia 5, Belarus 1
It took less than four minutes of play in the second period to turn a 1-0 game into a blowout as Slovakia walked away with a 5-1 victory over Belarus to give them some separation from France and Switzerland in Group H.

With the win, Slovakia now has nine points (3-0-0-2), three more than the fifth and sixth place teams.

Defenseman Andrej Sekera gave the Slovaks the 1-0 lead 6:45 into the game off a wrister from just the point.

Holding onto the one-goal lead early in the second, Slovakia really did some damage in the early going of the frame. It was Branko Radivojevic doubling their lead 3:16 in off of an unlucky bounce for Belarus as the clearing pass hit a referee and Sekera found the Slovak forward who scored from the slot. Then 1:42 later Michel Miklik scored on a backhander.

Up 3-0 it was Panthers forward Tomas Kopecky furthering the lead 50 seconds later as he drove to the net and one-timed Radivojevic's centering pass past Vitali Koval for his third goal of the tournament.

Juraj Mikus finished out the Slovakian scoring 1:08 after Kopecky's goal, 6:56 into the period, scoring from in close.

Belarus would get on the board on a power play goal by Alexei Kalyuzhny with 5:24 remaining in the second off a rebound but that's all they would get as Jan Laco stopped 30 shots for the victory.

Kopecky finished with the goal on three shots and was a plus-3 on 14:33 of ice time.

FULL STORY (IIHF.com)
FINAL STATS (IIHF.com)

Germany 2, Denmark 1
Germany kept its hopes of advancing to the quarterfinals alive by edging winless Denmark in Stockholm on a third-period goal by Philip Gogulla.

"It was our game. With all the chances we had today, I had no doubt we were going to win it. But we got beaten by a goalie. That’s the way it works sometimes," said Denmark's Morten Green, who opened the scoring by beating goaltender Dennis Endras 1:35 into the second period after the Danes outshot Germany 13-5 in the first.

Kirill Starkov passed the puck out of his zone to himself, triggering a 3-on-1 break. He found Green, who took the puck off his skate in stride and slipped it past Dennis Endras.

Germany (2-0-0-3, 6 points) tied it at 17:10 when Christopher Fischer batted a pass to Thomas Greilinger, whose stick side blast beat goaltender Frederik Andersen. The goal came at 17:10 of the second with Fischer and Evan Kaufmann notching assists.

Gogulla put the Germans ahead at 8:36 of the third period. Patrick Reimer took a shot that was stopped by Anderson. He fanned on the rebound, but Gogulla got to it and knocked it past Andersen.

Denmark (0-0-1-4, 1 point) is last in the Stockholm group. The Danes are off Sunday and face Latvia on Monday. Germany plays Norway on Sunday.

Panthers forward Marcel Goc finished with a +1 and won 50% of his draws (10-of-20) on 17:04 of ice time.

FULL STORY (IIHF.com)
FINAL STATS (IIHF.com)