Defending champions Russia beat Belarus 3-1 to sweep all three of their group matches at the World Championships on Thursday.
Alex Ovechkin scored his third goal of the tournament, while Sergei Mozyakin and Artyom Anisimov also hit the back of the net as Russia jumped ahead 3-0 after 35 minutes. Goalie Semyon Varlamov saved 19 shots in his first action for Russia.
“It’s positive and we’ve got the job done in the three first games,” veteran Russia forward Sergei Federov said. “There’s no time to relax, we will face a lot of good teams and we have to concentrate on doing our things much better every day.”
Alexei Kalyuzhny scored in the final period for Belarus, who claimed third place in Group A and a spot in the second round.
Locking up second place in Group A was Slovakia after a convincing 5-1 victory over Kazakhstan.
Ivan Ciernik, playing in his Cologne Sharks home arena, scored twice for Slovakia.
In Group C action in Mannheim, Sweden lost 2-1 against the Czech Republic, but captured first place in the group.
The Czechs opened the scoring after just 54 seconds on a short-handed goal by captain Tomas Rolinek.
Magnus Paarjarvi Svensson knotted the game four minutes into the second period, before Petr Hubacek struck five minutes later for the Czechs to lead 2-1. Tomas Vokoun had 31 saves for the Czech Republic.
“It was a game about goalies,” Czech coach Vladimir Ruzicka said. “They were both great.”
Sweden’s Jonas Gustavsson stopped 35 shots.
The result combined with Norway’s 5-1 win over France gave Sweden, the Czechs and Norway berths in the second round.
Sweden took first place in the group with the best goal differential in head-to-head games and the Czechs were second.
Norway fell behind 1-0 before scoring five unanswered goals for a 5-1 victory over France.
Stephane Da Costa’s power-play goal gave France a 1-0 lead in the first period, but Peter Lorentzen equalized, while Patrick Thoresen added a goal and an assist in the Norway run.
France lost all three games and will challenge the US, Italy and Kazakhstan against relegation.
Yesterday, Denmark were scheduled to take on Slovakia and Finland to play Belarus in Cologne. In Mannheim, Canada were scheduled to face Norway and Sweden to play Latvia.
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