World Hockey Championships: Day 5 & 6 Recap

Through six days at the 2021 IIHF World Hockey Championships, only one thing is clear and it’s that its anyone’s tournament. All teams have played at least three games with eight teams playing four, and so far only Slovakia is still undefeated with a 3-0-0-0 record.

Among notable results over the past few days were Kazakhstan coming back and defeating Germany 3-2, which ended Germany’s three game win streak to start the tournament. With the win, Kazakhstan is now up to three wins and seven points in the tournament, giving them a real shot at the playoff rounds. Great Britain also beat Belarus today in what was a big win for the nation after they barely stuck around in 2019 with an OT win over France.

Canada picked up their first win of the tournament today thanks to a strong showing from Adam Henrique and his linemates Connor Brown and Andrew Mangiapane. As a Flames fan it was super exciting to see Mangiapane wear the Canadian colours for the first time in his career, and he responded with a goal in the 2nd period and helped set up plays which led to the first two Canadian goals as well. It is especially impressive considering he has only been in Lativa for a few days and was in quarantine the whole time since coming over after the final Flames game of the season.

As we head into the second half of the round robin, nothing is really guaranteed for any of the teams. While the tournament isn’t closely followed in North America, many European countries and their fans really enjoy this tournament, so I’m hoping to see some fun storylines evolve over the next week. It would very cool to see Latvia find their way into the playoff round, especially with the buzz of spectators being allowed growing over the past few days.

Here are the results from Days 5 & 6 of the tournament:

Day 5

• Denmark 3, Great Britain 2 (OT)
• United States 3, Kazakhstan 0
• Sweden 7, Switzerland 0
• Finland 5, Norway 2

Day 6

• Russia 3, Denmark 0
• Kazakhstan 3, Germany 2
• Great Britain 4, Belarus 3
• Canada 4, Norway 2

The entire tournament standings can be found here.