Germany has pulled off a massive upset at the IIHF World Championship today with their 2-1 win over USA.
When looking at the game sheet you would think this would have been a comfortable win for the USA, as they out-shot Germany 43-27. This includes 32-to-12 over the second and third periods. While this shows how strongly the Unites States played in their loss, it also shows how strong German goaltender Thomas Greiss, who made 42 saves in the upset.
The lone goalscorer for the USA was surprisingly Arizona Coyotes defenseman Connor Murphy. Murphy scored two goals in 77 games in the 2016-17 NHL regular season for Arizona. The assists on the United States goal came from Detroit Red Wings forward Dylan Larkin and New York Islanders forward Brock Nelson.
The goalscorers for Germany were Arizona Coyotes right wing Tobias Rieder and the Cologne Sharks’ Patrick Hager. Assists on the goals came from Dominik Kahun, Patrick Reimer, Dennis Seidenberg and Phillip Cogula.
Not only was this an upset for the host nation, but the winning goal was scored by the home-town hero, Hager, in front of a sellout crowd of 18,600 in Cologne, Germany.
This big win puts Germany in a very good position to advance from the preliminary round of the World Championship. Their upcoming matches are against Sweden on Saturday, Russia on Monday, Slovakia next Wednesday, Denmark next Friday, Italy on May 13th, and they finish out the preliminary round against Latvia on May 16th.
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While this comes as a disappointing loss for one of the reportedly stronger teams at the IIHF World Championship, this is by no means the end of the road for the USA. Four teams advance out of each of the two groups at the World Championship. With the likes of Slovakia, Italy, Latvia, and Denmark being a part of the same group, the USA should be able to come back from this and still advance comfortably into the next round of the tournament.
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