World Championship Recap - 23.05.26

The Flames had three players in action on Saturday at the 2026 IIHF Men's World Championship, with Devin Cooley and Matt Coronato skating in the U.S. vs. Latvia tilt while Martin Pospisil and Slovakia took on Czechia.

USA 2, Latvia 4

Cooley, Coronato, and the Americans fell to the Latvians in the early-day match-up, dropping them to 2-3 in the tournament.

The U.S, heavily outshot Latvia in the loss, but netminder Kristers Gudlevskis was terrific for his country with 45 saves on the 47 shots he faced.

Cooley was in net for the U.S., making 18 saves and posting a .900 save percentage in his 58:39 of work. Through four appearances at the tournament, he's registered a 1.89 GAA and a .922 save percentage.

Coronato put in 19:18 of work on Saturday, centering Matthew Tkachuk and Tommy Novak on the top line. He had five shots on goal in the loss, bringing him up to 16 shots through five games. He has one goal at the tournament.

Haralds Egle kicked off the scoring in the first period, beating Cooley with a high shot at 8:47. Tkachuk would even things up in the second period with a powerplay marker, his first at the tournament.

In the third period, Deniss Smirnovs made it a 2-1 game at 6:06 and Sandis Vilmanis gave Latvia a 3-1 lead with an empty-netter at 18:58 but the U.S. was able to get back within one shortly after.

Mathieu Olivier scored at 19:09 but another empty-netter from Vilmanis iced the win for Latvia.

Cooley, Coronato, and the USA have two more games in the preliminary round, facing off against Hungary on Saturday and Austria on Monday.

Slovakia 2, Czechia 3

In a tightly-contested battle, Pospisil and Slovakia fell 3-2 to Czechia.

Czechia's Daniel Vozenilek scored the lone goal in the first period, breaking the ice at 8:09. 

Marek Hrivik, who spent one season in the Flames organization and played three NHL games in 2017-18, evened things out in the second period with a goal just 1:30 into the middle frame.

Martin Kaut was able to give Czechia the lead a couple of minutes later but a goal from Slovakia's Martin Chromiak left the game deadlocked at two goals apiece through 40 minutes.

Former Flame Roman Cervenka, who played 39 games with Calgary in 2012-13, netted the game-winner at 12:02 of the third period when a shot from Kaut deflected off his skate and beat Slovak goaltender Samuel Hlavaj. 

Pospisil, who skated on a line with brother Kristian and Martin Faskos-Rudas, played 14:56 and had one shot on net in the loss.

The Flames will have three skaters in action on Sunday, with Olli Määttä and Finland taking on Austria and Zach Whitecloud and Canada squaring off against Pospisil and Slovakia.