In Ostrava’s opening game at the 2024 IIHF World Championship, Germany scored a key 6-4 win over Slovakia that could go a long way to determining quarterfinal positioning. The Germans got goals from six different sources, while Yasin Ehliz and Leonhard Pföderl recorded three points each. The Germans were outshot 39-22 but Philipp Grubauer made 35 saves in a winning cause.
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“We always say that we take it game by game, but of course it is also extremely important to start the tournament well and we did that today,” said captain Moritz Müller. “There are certainly still little things that we can do better in the coming games. We played against a strong Slovak team today and showed strong nerves in all parts of the game. We had a good start to the game and always had an answer to the Slovak goals. Overall, it was a very solid team performance.”
The game remained scoreless almost until its midpoint, and then there was a barrage of five goals in a span of less than 10 minutes. Germany scored twice, Slovakia quickly tied it, and then defenseman Lukas Kälble scored the go-ahead goal on a shot from the top of the slot with 29 seconds left in the middle frame.
“Of course I’m happy about my goal, but the important thing was that we didn’t let ourselves get down today and always believed in ourselves,” said Kälble. “I think in the end we deserved to win. A win at the start of the World Championship is extremely important. We decided before the game that we wanted to put in a solid performance that we could build on. We can now carry this momentum into the next games.”
Germany’s second game will be the last of the day on Saturday against the USA.