Thoughts after Day 2 of the Division 1 Group A in Bolzano

I am currently in Bolzano, Italy covering the World Championship Division I Group A for IIHF.com. Here are my thoughts on what took place on the second day of action. If you missed them, here were my thoughts after Day 1.

Tuesday’s first two games started interesting but turned into laughers in favor of Slovenia and Hungary. The last game was a lot tighter, with Italy edging Japan 4-3 in overtime. 

After two days of games in Bolzano, Hungary is the only perfect team and is probably looking in good shape to go up. Romania has dropped a pair of 6-1 games and still seems like the obvious team to go down. The other four teams have all given or lost points and have various chances of advancing.

After dropping their opener 4-2 to Korea, Slovenia had a "gimme" in game two against Romania – the team that faces the biggest threat to be relegated. However, it took them a while to get going and they even surrendered the first goal when Romania’s Albert Zagidullin converted a deflection at 3:40.

It was still early, granted, but the Slovenian fans in attendance were silent and worried. They had travelled to Bolzano intent on seeing their team promoted back to the top flight. But with a second-straight loss, they could have forgotten that. In fact, relegation would have become a probability. If Slovenia had lost to Romania, they would have needed a minimum of four points from their last three games – with Italy and Hungary still to play.

The Slovenes finally got their act together and went on to win 6-1, so they’re probably safe from relegation. But a win over Romania is hardly reason to feel comfortable and they still don’t feel like a team that’s going to finish in the top two. We’ll see what happens in those games against Italy and Hungary, though. Italy is coming up tomorrow.

“There are no easy games here but we’re not worried about the other teams,” said Slovenian defenseman Matic Podlipnik. “We need to play our game and stick to the plan. It’s all in our hands. We came here to win all five games. We lost one but we still have three more games and if we win all of them, we should be fine.”

In the second game, Korea took the early lead and then killed off a five-minute major to stay in front, and like in the previous game, I started to think about the implications of an upset – with wins over Slovenia and Hungary, Korea would be looking in good shape to advance. However, Hungary scored twice late in the first and then added four more in the second period, eventually winning 6-2.

The game of the day was the nightcap – a back-and-forth affair between Italy and Japan that ended with Luca Frigo scoring the winning goal just five seconds into overtime. Falling behind 2-0, Japan showed a lot of resilience to come back and take a 3-2 lead on a knuckleball shot from the point by Koki Yoneyama. Thomas Larkin tied it for Italy and the Italians pressed hard for the winner late in regulation time but Yuta Narisawa, who gave up a bad goal against Hungary that turned out to be the game-winner, was sensational today, stopping 31 of 35, and was under fire throughout an Italian power play late in the third period, which earned him a point.

Japan only has one point through two games, but they’ve played probably the best two teams in the tournament and could very well have won both of them.

“Both were good games, could have gone either way, and I think we gave ourselves a great chance tonight with that go-ahead goal,” Japan’s coach Jarrod Skalde said afterward. “But you know, they’ve got a lot of weapons over there and it’s one shot, but our guys played hard, played the way we wanted to play and unfortunately it didn’t work out for us.”

Wednesday’s schedule starts with as close to a lock as we can get in this tournament: Hungary vs Romania. Most of the Romanian players are in fact ethnic Hungarians and they’ll no doubt be up for this game, but I don’t see any chance it’ll be even close. But that’s followed by two interesting matchups: Japan vs Korea and Slovenia vs Italy.

Both Japan and Korea have been impressive at this tournament and are very familiar with each other, with most of both rosters consisting of Asia League players. They also play very similar styles and it should be a very fast-paced game. There’s also a lot at stake, as the winner is probably still alive in the race for advancement, whereas the loser can probably forget about it.

Based on how both teams have looked so far, Italy should probably have the edge against Slovenia,

but not by much. Both teams have dropped points against teams they were considered better than, pre-tournament anyway.