(Gothenburg) Montreal Canadiens prospect Lane Hutson was one of four players on his team to record three points and was one of the pillars of a convincing 10-2 state victory. -United against Slovakia on Sunday in the last match for the two countries in the preliminary phase of the World Junior Hockey Championship.
The American defenseman collected three assists, the first on a goal by Gavin Brindley (2-1-3), scored 29 seconds into the second period as the United States tried to resist a numerical disadvantage of five minutes.
Hutson also contributed to the last two goals of the match, those of Cutter Gauthier (1-2-3) and Isaac Howard (2-0-2), which capped an explosion of five unanswered goals in the third period.
Rutger McGroarty was the other big star of the American team with a hat trick.
It was the second time since the start of the tournament that the American team had scored at least 10 goals. She achieved the feat in an 11-3 win against Switzerland on December 28.
In addition to stopping the momentum of the Slovaks, winners of their first three group stage matches, the United States (3-1-0-0 -11 points) ensured a first place finish in Group B, ahead of Slovakia (3-0-1-0 -9 points).
The United States took control of the match from the final moments of the second period.
After Filip Mesar, another Habs prospect, scored his first goal of the tournament at 17:50 of the second period to cut the United States’ lead to 3-2, Ryan Leonard answered back 30 seconds later.
McGroarty added his second of the game 34 seconds after his teammate’s. McGroarty completed his hat trick at 4:06 of the third period to make it 6-2.
Marian Mosko scored the other goal for Slovakia, who directed 40 pucks toward goaltender Trey Augustine.
Later Sunday, Sweden (3-0-0-1 -10 points) allowed its first goals since the start of the tournament and lost 5-4 to Finland (1-1-2-0 -5 points) in shootouts.
In another game on the calendar, on Sunday, the Czech Republic secured third place in Group B thanks to a 4-2 victory against Switzerland.
This result means that Switzerland will face Sweden in one of the four quarter-final matches which will be presented on Tuesday.
Elsewhere, Slovakia will face Finland and the United States will play Latvia, who avoided relegation following Germany’s regulation-time defeat to Canada.
This relegation match, between Germany and Norway, will be presented on Thursday.
