Samuel Honzek scores again for Slovakia (and other Day 2 World Junior notes)

The second day of competition at the IIHF World Junior Championship tournament in Gothenburg, Sweden took place on Wednesday. For the second consecutive day, Calgary Flames prospect Samuel Honzek and his Slovakian national team were in action.

For the second consecutive day, Honzek scored a tally that held up as the game-winning goal in a Slovakia win.

Another game, another strong performance from Slovakia.

Backed by a superb 36-save performance from goaltender Adam Gajan and some timely scoring – both early and late in the game – Slovakia beat Switzerland by a 3-0 score on Wednesday to run their record to open the round robin to 2-0. Honzek, Peter Repcik and Servac Petrovsky scored for Slovakia.

Honzek’s stat line read like this for Game 2: 1 goal, 1 point, 5 shots, +1 in 17:54 of time on ice. He played on Slovakia’s third line – alongside Repcik and Juraj Pekarcik – and saw time on both sides of special teams as well. He drew a penalty shot during the game, but did not score.

Slovakia is off on Thursday, but returns to action on Friday (at 4 a.m. MT) against Norway.

Germany beat Finland by a 4-3 score [Group A]: In the first substantial upside of the tournament, Finland lost to Germany in regulation. Germany received goals from Veit Oswald (two), Niklas Hubner and Roman Kechter. Finland got goals from Tommi Mannisto, Kasper Halttunen and Samu Bau. Finland out-shot Germany 17-5 in the third period, but couldn’t beat German netminder Philipp Dietl.

Czechia beat Norway by an 8-1 score [Group B]: “They are who we thought they were, Part 1.” Czechia got goals from Jiri Kulich (three), Eduard Sale (three), Ales Cech and Matyas Sapovaliv as they bounced back from their opening day loss to Slovakia. Casper Haugen had the lone goal for Norway.

Canada beat Latvia by a 10-0 score [Group A]: “They are who we thought they were, Part 2.” Canada got goals from Conor Geekie (two), Brayden Yager, Owen Allard, Carson Rehkopf (two), Macklin Celebrini, Fraser Minten, Matthew Wood and Matthew Poitras.

Thursday’s games