Russia and Switzerland remain perfect at ice hockey worlds

Russia defeated host Germany with a neat 3-2 win thanks to NHL Stars Ilja Kovalchuk and Alexander Ovechkin while Switzerland earned an impressive 3-2 victory over the Czech Republic on Saturday in the ice hockey world championship.

Kovalchuk and Ovechkin scored one goal respectively and goalkeeper Semyon Varlamov made an impressive 32 saves.

Kovalchuck opened the scoring with a wrist shot with 15 minutes into first period. Nikolai Kulemin doubled the lead for Russia in the beginning of second period.

Germany got itself back into the match through Christian Ehrhoff who shortened the score with 40 minutes into the match.

Ovechkin destroyed all hopes of a German comeback when he extended the score to 3-1. Alexander Barta was able to shorten the score to 3-2 for Germany in the dying minutes of the game.

Russia sits on top of group E with nine points while Germany sits on fourth with three points.

Andreas Ambuehl, Martin Pluess and goalkeeper Martin Gerber wrapped the impressive 3-2 win over the Czech Republic. With 4 minutes into the match Pluess gave Switzerland the lead when he opened the scoring.

Only ten minutes later Ambuehl extended the lead to 2-0

The Czech Republic started more organized into second period and was rewarded by Jan Marek in the 24th minute. Ambuehl got his second of the night with 12 minutes in second period. Miroslav Blatak scored for the Czech Republic to make it 2-3 on the scoreboards.

The victory gave Switzerland the first place in group F with a perfect record of 3-0-0 and nine points while the Czech Republic occupies fourth position with three points.

France earned their first victory of the tournament at relegation round with a 2-1 victory over winless Italy.

Baptiste Amar and Laurent Gras smoothed the way for the first win.

Italy was only able to shorten the score to 1-2 through Michele Strazzabosco.

The victory gives France second position in group G with three points while Italy sits on third position with nil points.

The United States humiliated Kazakhstan 10-0 in the other match of relegation group G on Saturday. Matt Gilroy donated three goals to the double-digit shutout victory.

This is the first victory in four games for Team USA while Kazakhstan remains winless.

The win puts Team USA on first position of group G with three points and a plus ten-goal difference. Kazakhstan remains on fourth position with zero points and a minus ten goal difference.

Source: Xinhua