Top prospect Aron Kiviharju finished with three assists as Finland secured a spot in the semifinals with a 4-1 win over Germany at the 2022 Hlinka Gretzky Cup
RED DEER, Alta. – Aron Kiviharju led the way with three assists as Finland
won its second preliminary at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup with a 4-1 victory
over Germany.
Rasmus Kumpulainen opened the scoring on an early man advantage for the
Finns. Emil Järventie added another goal to stretch the Finland lead to 2-0
as the Finns outshot the Germans 15-8 in the first period.
German goaltending has struggled this tournament and the Finns took full
advantage as Jesse Kiiskinen and Otso Ylitalo made it a 4-0 game going into
the third. In total, Germany was outshot 120-55 and out scored 19-4 in
three games.
Kevin Bicker was able to spoil Emil Vinni’s shutout bid eleven seconds into
the third to make it a 4-1 game. Vinni finished with 15 saves on the night.
“Same as we felt yesterday against the U.S. we felt like it was do or die
and we had to get the win if we wanted to get to the semifinals,” says
Kiviharju. “We knew that Germany was going to give their best, they want to
win also, so we wanted to be better than them in all types of situations.”
Finland has guaranteed themselves a spot in one of the two semifinals on
Saturday evening (5:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. MT) pending the results of
tomorrow’s games.
