RUSSIA VS TEAM CANADA RED

by PAT BRETHAUER
Thursday November 7, 2014

Lambton Shores, On -  The 7:00 pm game saw Russia down Canada Red 4 - 1 in the quarter final round of the Under-17 World Hockey Challenge.
 

"We certainly had opportunities to capitalize and we didn’t." Canada's head coach Dan Lambert said "But our players did a lot of good things today. The effort was there and I thought tonight the energy was good for the players, they made a lot of good plays unfortunately they came up short."

Canada would take the early lead scoring the only goal in the period at 7:17 when Sean Day (Mississagua OHL)banged one in from the blueline on a power play.  Logan Brown (Windsor OHL) and Jake Kryski (Kamloops WHL) earned the assist.

But that single goal would be the only goal Canada would get despite many opportunities that included pulling their goalie at 5:40 in the third while on a power play to have the two man advantaged. 

"We didn’t have anything to lose at that point," Lambert said "Rarely do you pull a goal for five minutes and not get scored on or score one. That just tells you of their resilience and the fact that we were able to keep puck in their end and get scoring opportunities. Their goalie made saves, they sacrificed, they blocked a ton of shots, we missed a few opportunities that’s just the way it goes sometimes."

The net would remain empty after the power play was over until the end of the game.

Canada out shot Russia 39-25.

"I felt after the second period we could easily been up 2, 3 4 goals but unfortunately it wasn’t that," Lambert said "Then in the third they (Russia) capitalized on their chances. We know that they are a skilled bunch over there, that’s just the way they are and typically they don’t need a lot of chances and unfortunately for us we gave them a few and they put it in."

Russia scored their first goal in the second period and added three more in the third.

Leading Russia in scoring was Dmitri Sokolov who scored two goals and singles by German Rubstov and Maxim Bain.

Russia was denied on two power play opportunities, Canada went one for four.

Maxim Kalyayev earned the win in net for Russia making 38 saves.  Dylan Wells made 18 saves for Canada.

"You have to remember a lot of these countries play together often," Lambert added  "We put these kids together, we have one practice and an exhibition game that’s always a challenge but sometimes it takes a little bit of time to find the right chemistry sometime. But I thought I can certainly speak for Red that our team came together well and did a lot of good things and I think so far it’s been a good experience for these young men to represent their country the way they did .  Sometimes it’s not all about winning and losing sometimes it’s developing these young kids is more important."

Russia will now move on to the Semi-final round on Friday when they take on Finland at 8:00 pm at the RBC Centre.  Canada Red will face Canada White in the placement round for fifth place.

 ______________________________________________________________



Go to U17