Category: 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship

Slovakia gets past Switzerland

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2025 World Junior Hockey Championship

by Lucas AYKROYD| IIHF

December 27th, 2024

Jan Chovan scored the go-ahead goal with 3:18 left in the third period as Slovakia earned its first win of the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship, nipping Switzerland 2-1. The Swiss remain winless through two games.

Chovan, who plays for Tappara Tampere in Finland, picked up the puck after Swiss blueliner Leon Muggli sent it up the middle, and he whipped a high shot home.

It was a cautious if hard-working battle between these Group B foes. Shots were even at 29 apiece. Slovakia netminder Samuel Urban won his duel with Swiss goalie Christian Kirsch, who was making his World Junior debut.

The teams were coming off tough first-day losses to higher-class opponents, with Slovakia falling 5-2 to Sweden and Switzerland 5-1 to Czechia. Offensive pop remains a concern for both sides.

Slovakia has two bronze medals (1999, 2015) to Switzerland’s one (1998). For either nation, anything better than the usual quarter-final exit would be a pleasant surprise this year.

In a tight-checking first period, coach Ivan Fenes’ Slovaks started slowly but ramped up their pressure as time went by. Daniel Jencko broke the scoreless tie at 18:46, standing in front of Kirsch to tip in Luka Radivojec’s centre point slapper. It was the second goal in as many games for the 19-year-old World Junior rookie who plays NCAA hockey for Amherst.

Slovak captain Dalibor Dvorsky – a four-time World Junior participant, like assistant captain Maxim Strbak – scored the first goal of these World Juniors against Sweden. The top 19-year-old prospect of the St. Louis Blues kept his 2025 tournament point streak going with an assist on Jencko’s goal.

Switzerland’s power play went 0-for-4 against the Czechs snf remained impotent here.The Swiss pressed for the equalizer during a mid-second period man advantage, but Urban authoritatively denied Muggli with a glove grab on the best Swiss chance.

Eric Schneller tied it up at 13:48, seconds after serving a tripping penalty. The Geneve-Servette attacker stepped out of the sin bin, took a long pass from Jamiro Reber, and fought off Radivojevic’s backchecking as he cut in off the right side to knife a backhander past the Slovak goalie.

With just over five minutes remaining in the third period, Kirsch made the nicest glove save of the afternoon, stretching out to foil Slovakia’s Tomas Pobezal from the slot. Unfortunately, he couldn’t repeat that move when Chovan scored the winner.

The Swiss pulled Kirsch for the extra skater in the dying stages, but it was to no avail.

Game Notes

  • This victory gave Slovakia the slimmest of edges over Switzerland in the all-time head-to-head rivalry: eight wins, one tie, and seven losses, dating back to 1996.
  • Forward Jonah Neuenschwander made his World Junior debut, becoming the first 15-year-old to appear at this tournament in 24 years and just the fifth all-time.
    • He is the younger brother of  18-year-old Swiss goalie Elijah Neuenschwander, who played against Czechia.
    • He has appeared in five Swiss NL games with EHC Biel-Bienne this season, recording one assist as a teammate of ex-NHL and World Championship veterans like Damien Brunner and Gaetan Haas.
  • Both teams get Saturday off. On Sunday, the Swiss face a stiff test versus Sweden, while the Slovaks will revive their brotherly rivalry with neighboring Czechia.

2025 World Juniors Championship – Day 1

On By CanucksBanterIn 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship, 2025 World Junior ChampionshipLeave a comment

By Andrew Phillip Chernoff | CanucksBanter

December 26th, 2024

Source: iihf.com

2025 World Junior Championship Day 1 – 411 by Andrew Podnieks @ iihf.com

  • The World Junior Championship is coming to Canada for the 16th time, and the second time to Ottawa
  • The last time the Juniors came to Ottawa was 2009, when fans set a record by passing through the turnstiles 453,282 times in 31 games, an average of 14,622 a game (also a record).
  • This year begins a string of three World Juniors in a row in North America:
    • Next year will be hosted by USA Hockey, at St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota
    • The year after will be back under the auspices of Hockey Canada, in Alberta (location(s) TBD).
  • Kazakhstan earned promotion last year and will be playing at the World Juniors for the ninth time, and the first since 2020.
    • Only five countries have played in every U20—Canada, Czechia/Czechoslovakia, Finland, Sweden, United States. 
  • Canada is tops in several all-time categories.
    • They lead the medal haul, having won 35 in the previous 48 events (20G, 10S, 5B)
    • No country has scored more goals than Canada’s total of 1,637 in 314 games.
    • Their 231 victories is also tops, followed by Sweden (198), Finland (176), and the United States (175). 
  • Two Slovaks will also break—or, tie—a record.
    • Both Dalibor Dvorsky and Maxim Strbak will be playing in their FIFTH World Juniors! But there’s a catch.
      • Their first U20 was the ill-fated event of December 2021 that was cancelled because of a covid-19 outbreak.
      • They both played two games of that tournament, then played in 2022, 2023, and 2024, and should tie the official record of four tournaments in their first game in Ottawa.
      • However, because the team never advanced past the quarter-finals in this span, they won’t approach the record for most games played (26, Bjorn Christen, SUI). They both sit at 16 games played.
  • Czechia’s Eduard Sale will also try to make his way into the record books.
    • He will be playing in his third straight U20, and he has already won a silver medal in 2023 and bronze last year. Another medal in Ottawa would tie him for most in a career.
    • Indeed, some 28 players have won three medals at the World Juniors, but at the top of the heap stands Canada’s Jason Botterill, the only player to have won three gold.
  • Two Americans also have a pretty special resume that they hope to add to in the next two weeks.
    • Gabe Perreault and Zeev Buium won gold at the U18 in 2023 and gold at last year’s World Juniors. Only seven times has a team won U18 one year and U20 the next, so the list of back-to-back gold medallists is small.
    • To win three combined gold medals at the junior level (U20 + U18) is also a small and exclusive list (last achieved by Canadian Connor Bedard and achieved by only five Americans—goalie Jack Campbell, and skaters Seth Jones, Jacob Trouba, Jason Zucker, and Rocco Grimaldi).
  • In the crease, the goalie to watch is another American Trey Augustine, who could add his name to the record book on several counts.
    • Still only 19, he will be playing in his sixth tournament and record-tying third World Juniors for the Americans.
    • He has a gold medal from last year and a bronze from 2023, so a medal in Ottawa would tie the record of three medals for a goalie at the U20.
    • And if that third medal were to be gold, he would join an exclusive group of five other goalies with two career golds.