World Championship Recap - 15.05.24

Slovakia 4, Poland 0

Another game, another win.

Slovakia picked up their third victory of the tourney, cruising to a shutout victory Wednesday over Poland.

Martin Pospisil was held off the scoresheet but played an impactful game that Flames fans have become familiar with. His 18:22 of ice time was second among forwards as he notched three shots on goal and went 12-for-18 in the faceoff dot.

Slovakia wasted little time getting the party started as two minutes into the tilt, Tomas Tatar would find himself alone in front of the Poland net, pulling a couple quick dekes before sending it over to Lukas Cingel who had a yawning cage to fire into.

Nine minutes later, Tatar would this time strike on a backdoor play executed perfectly thanks to Simon Nemec’s feed to double the lead. Pospisil nearly made it 3-0 as he found himself alone in front of the Poland net and redirected a pass that Tomas Fucik just got a toe on to keep it a two-goal game.

The two netminders stood tall in the middle stanza, with Slovakia’s Samuel Hlavaj making stellar stops to take the 2-0 lead into the third.

And then, Slovakia wrapped things up.

Late in the final stanza, Slovakia pressed for the insurance marker and got just that with Peter Cehlarik scoring on his own rebound and just 12 seconds later, Cingel jumped in on the fun to seal the deal.

Slovakia heavily outshot Poland 44-20, with Hlavaj earning the shutout. With the win, they find themselves second in Group B with eight points.

Pospisil and Slovakia will have a couple days of rest before returning to action for a Saturday matinee, taking on France at 12:20 p.m. MT.

Andrew Mangiapane and Canada hit the ice Thursday afternoon at 12:20 p.m. MT against Norway.