MONTREAL – The drought is over — Austria is back in the quarterfinals at the IIHF World Championship for the first time in 31 years.
Canadiens prospect Vinzenz Rohrer led the charge with a multi-goal effort on Tuesday, helping his team clinch a historic berth in the knockout stage.
Meanwhile, Mike Matheson and Canada closed out the preliminary round in style, defeating Emil Heineman and Sweden to lock down first place in Group A.
Here’s a brief summary of the games:
LATVIA 1 – 6 AUSTRIA
Austria punched their ticket to the quarterfinals at the tournament for the first time since 1994 with a runaway 6-1 win over Latvia.
Rohrer stayed red-hot with a two-goal performance in Stockholm.
The Habs hopeful jumped on a cross-ice turnover, broke in alone, and made a tidy top-shelf finish to give Austria a 3-0 lead. He then sealed the victory with an empty-netter — his fourth goal of the competition.
Austria wrapped up the preliminary round with a 2-2-0-3 record, clinching fourth place in Group A.
SWEDEN 3 – 5 CANADA
Canada rebounded from their only loss of the tournament on Monday with a 5-3 victory over the co-hosts on Tuesday.
Travis Sanheim’s opening goal 18 seconds into the game was part of a five-spot for the Canadians, completed by Tyson Foerster, Ryan O’Reilly, Macklin Celebrini and Nathan MacKinnon.
Matheson and Heineman each recorded one shot on goal in 18:28 and 7:15 of playing time, respectively. While Matheson didn’t make any noise on the offensive front, he certainly made his presence felt at the back, with an incredible stick save late in the game.
