On the third game day of the 2009 IIHF World Championship, Div. IA in Vilnus, Kazakhstan had to work hard to beat japan 3-1. Slovenia also struggled but managed to beat Croatia 4-2

KAZAKHSTAN - JAPAN 3-1 (1-0, 1-1, 1-0)

A hard fought game, but in the end Kazakhstan kept their unbeaten record in this tournament after a tenacious game plan by Japan.

Japan's forechecking was doing an excellent job of reducing the effectiveness of the Kazakhstan skating game in the first period. As a result, whilst the Kazakh's outshot them by 15-5, they would not have been happy with the quality of the opportunities that they were earning.

However, just as it looked like Japan would go back to the dressing room the happier of the two teams, Kazakhstan opened the scoring through Vorontsov with just 84 seconds left in the period.

A double Kazakhstan penalty over the break didn't provide much for the Japanese. But, the Kazakh tendency to give away penalties whilst short-handed cost them just before the game hit it's midway point. With 7 seconds left on an excellent Japanese double powerplay, Saito's goalmouth scramble was awarded by the referee after video replay.

The goal seemed to give Kazakhstan an extra gear and a powerplay just 2 minutes after the Japanese goal gave them opportunity to return to the lead. On the break, Savchenko fired the puck wide of Haruna's net, only for Gavrilin to score from the rebound off the back boards.

Japan survived a scare late in the period when Haruna fell over trying to control a loose puck behind his net. Shin managed to retrieve the puck off the netminder, but Kazakhstan were unable to do anything with the puck after frantic activity from the Japanese defence.

The third period was very cagey with both teams playing a more defensive game, particularly in the neutral zone, and with shots being longer and more speculative. It took until 57:03 before Kazakhstan could make the game safe; a nice wrap around goal.

Kazakhstan - Japan 3-1 (1-0, 1-1, 1-0)
1-0 18:36 Aleksei Vorontsev 1 (Shin, Fadeyev)
1-1 27:32 Takeshi Saito PP2
2-1 30:46 Andrei Gavrilin 2 (Savchenko, Yakovenko) PP1
3-1 57:03 Yevgeni Rymarev 3 (Gavrilin) PP1
KAZ 10x2, JAP 7x2, SOG 36:20 (15:5, 12:11, 9:4), Att: 300

KAZ: A. Kuznetsov; S: Yakovenko, R. Savchenko, I. Solarev (2), V. Krasnoslobotsev, A. Gavrilin - Y. Mazunin (2), Y. Fadeyev), M. Belyayev (4), A. Samokhvalov, S. Alexandrov- A. Lakiza (2), V. Antipin, A. Koreshkov, Y. Rymarev (2), R. Starchenko - V. Kolesnikov, G. Petrov (2), A. Vorontsov, A. Shin (2), A. Spiridonov (4)
JAPM. Haruna; J. Tonosaki, Keller, S. Sato (2), G. Tanaka, T. Suzuki (2) - M. Kawashima (4), R. Minami, S. Kuji, Ta. Saito, Te. Saito -F. Miyauchi, R. Kawai, T. Kamino, M. Nishiwaki (2), D. Obara - Y. Haga, Y. Kon, Y. Iimora, S. Shigeno (2), M. Ogawa (2).

SLOVENIA - CROATIA 4-2 (1-0, 1-2, 2-0)

For 40 minutes, this wasn't the game we expected. Results so far in this tournament suggested that the 2nd seed Slovenians would skate to a comfortable victory over the 5th seeded Croatians without really getting out of 2nd gear.

For 20 minutes, the Croatians frustrated their neighbours in a pattern that we've seen often this tournament. Although half a step behind the opposition, they were able to reduce the quality of the Slovenian shots. At the other end of the ice, Hocevar was only called into action twice by the Croatian offence.

When Slovenia finally broke the deadlock at 17:28, the pattern continued. Croatia couldn't keep Slovenia out forever, and Raingar's goal had a certain amount of inevitability to it.

And then the remarkable happened. Two and a half minutes into the game, Croatia scored thanks to Trstenjak who collected the puck for his own trophy cabinet. Slovenia must have been as shocked as the crowd as, just 29 seconds later, Jakovac shot them into an inprobable lead.

Slovenia battled but the Croatian defence stood up to the task. It didn't look pretty, but it was effective. But, a second penalty in quick succession for Croatia proved too much and Slovenia managed to tie the game up after Milovanovic was left unsupervised at the edge of Belic's crease.

Normal service resumed in the third period. 90 seconds played and Razingar scored what would prove to be the game winning goal and Croatia never really looked like getting back on terms. Robar scored the insurance goal less than 5 minutes in and the game was over as a contest.

But, Croatia can take nothing but positive from this game. If they can play like this again, not only will they be too much for Australia but Lithuania also need to take heed. As for Slovenia, they have to hope that this was a case of not getting up for a game against a weaker nation. If they repeat this performance in their next 2 games against Japan and Kazakhstan, they are going to struggle.

Slovenia - Croatia 4-2 (1-0, 1-2, 2-0)
1-0 17:28 Tomas Razingar 3 (Sivic, Muric) PP1
1-1 22:31 P Trstenjak 1 (Rendulic, Kanaet)
1-2 23:00 Damir Jakovac 1 (Grozaj)
2-2 34:08 Jakob MIlanovic 2 (Pavlin, D. Rodman) PP1
3-2 41:30 Tomas Razingar 4 (Music)
4-2 44:14 Mitja Robar 2 (Hebar, M. Rodman)
SLO 5x2, CRO 11x2, SOG 43:13 (14:2, 14:6, 15:5), Att: 600

SLO: A. Hocevar, Z. Pavlin, J. Milovanovic, D. Rodman, A. Hebar (4), M. Rodman (2) - M. Robar, S. Kovacevic, T. Razingar, M. Sivic, A. Music- A. Tavzelj, B. Groznik, E. Muric (2), G. Polonicic, A. Terlikar - Z. Svete, R. Ticar, M. Hocevar, J. Golicic, Z. Pance.
CRO: V. Belic; S. Belic (2), L. Novosel (6), M. Mladjenovic, V. Zibret, K. Svigir - M. Brumercik, M. Tadic, V. Chovanec, M. Novak (4), J. Kucera, - I. Jacmenjak (2), T. Sulevski D. Kanaet, P. Trstenjak (2), B. Rendulic -M. Sertic, N. Trstnenjak, T. Grozaj , D. Jakovac (2), M. Kopajtic.

AUSTRALIA - LITHUANIA 3-9 (0-5, 1-2, 2-2)

After two days of trying to knock heavier weight opponents off their game, Lithuania got to show what they could do in a 9-3 defeat of Australia.

After replacing Matt Ezzy in their previous game, Australia decided to start with Stuart Denman who had looked the better of their two netminders during his 30 minute stint in front of Japan. However, his new found position as the Australian number one netminder lasted only 20 minutes as Lithuania laid siege on his net.

His net was breeched for the first time after just 4 minutes after Kuliesius forced home from close range, but it was a 3-goal two minute spell two-thirds through the period that did the damage. And by then Lithuania were already 2-0 up.

While the Australian defence were as much to blame for many of those first five goals as Denman was, Australia did look more assured with Ezzy back in front of the net for the second and third periods. The shots still rained in, 38 in total for the last 40 minutes, but Lithuania were only able to score another 4 times.

Australia on the other hand started to get more and more into the game. Just after halfway, and 6-0 down by now, Stransky finally got Australia onto the scoreboard. Then, in the third period, when Lithuania were clearly happy to sit on the game, Franchini and Upton allowed Australia to finish on a high and score a tournament-high 3 goals.

In the end, Lithuania showed that they can be deadly when they play a skilled game and are still likely to have the measure of an increasingly impressive Croatia.  Australia will be glad to have finished on that high, but relegation is now starting to look inevitable.