Seitz; Roberts and Meireles open Ivan Hlinka Memorial Cup with wins
The Rangers contingent representing their respective countries at the Under-18 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Cup each came away with overtime wins in the opening day of the tournament.
BRECLAV, Czech Republic – Forward Dylan Seitz and Team USA outlasted a back-and-forth affair to come away with a 4-3 overtime win over Finland on Monday.
Ryan Poehling scored with 24 seconds left in OT to give the USA U-18 Select Team a 4-3 victory over Finland in the opening game in Breclav, Czech Republic.
Vanya Lodnia opened the scoring for Team USA at 15:31 of the first period. Sasha Chmelevski gathered a loose puck and flipped a backhand pass to Lodnia, who beat Finland goaltender Lasse Lehtinen.
Finland’s Eero Teravainen tallied on the power play just 3:21 later to even the score 1-1 entering the first intermission.
Chmelevski scored a power-play goal at 10:31 of the second period to give Team USA a 2-1 advantage. Lodnia collected a pass from Brannon McManus and found a streaking Chmelevski in front of the net, who tapped the puck past Lehtinen for the goal.
Sami Moilanen tied the game 2-2 with Finland’s second power-play goal 2:54 into the final period.
Michael Pastujov gave the U.S. a 3-2 lead with 8:51 to play before Teravainen scored his second power-play goal to make it 3-3 with 2:18 remaining in regulation. The teams then skated into overtime and traded chances until Poehling took a pass from Tommy Miller and fired a wrist shot past Lehtinen for the game-winner with only 24 seconds remaining in the extra session.
Goaltender Keith Petruzzelli made 22 saves in the U.S. victory.
Team USA continues tournament play Tuesday (August 9th) against Switzerland at 9:30 am ET. A live stream of the game is available here.
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia – Team Canada saw a 2-0 lead midway through the third period dissipate but managed to capitalize in overtime, skating away with a 3-2 win in their opener at the Hlinka Memorial.
Maxime Comtois scored twice – including the OT winner – as Team Canada led 2-0 until over midway through the third period when the hometown Slovaks got goals from Michal Ivan (10:52) and Filip Krivosik (18:58) to send the game to extra time.
Comtois’ game winner came at 4:31, unassisted, as the Canadian’s outshot the hosts 43-23. Ian Scott earned the win in goal for Canada.
Canada’s next game is Tuesday (August 9th) when they take on Russia at 5:30am ET.
