It hasn’t been the best World Championship for Denmark so far and Friday’s game against Great Britain wasn’t a masterpiece by any means, but thanks to a third-period goal from Christian Weise, the Danes managed to pull out a 4-3 victory – their second win in five games.
“I don’t think we played our best game but we found a way to win, and that’s what’s most important – three points,” said Patrick Russell, who wore that captain’s “C” for Denmark in the game.
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Russell, who at 31 is now one of the team’s veterans, has three points in five games but none of them were in the GB game. His line, which also consists of Alexander True and Joachim Blichfeld, was on the ice for all three British goals and none of Denmark’s four.
“It was a great team effort,” said Russell. “My line … it wasn’t our day today. We tried to battle it out but we had some unlucky bounces. So it was huge that the other lines got going. That’s what a good team does.”
The line that includes 19-year-old Oscar Mølgaard scored two of the team’s goals. Mølgaard’s two assists in the game gives the Seattle Kraken prospect three points in the tournament.
“Yeah, he’s had a great tournament,” said Russell. “It’s not very often he has a bad game, his bottom level is pretty high and that’s really important to have.”
Mølgaard earlier spoke about how great it is to be able to pick the brains of Russell, Oliver Lauridsen and some of the other veteran Danish players, and that’s something Russell confirmed.
“He’s a good young kid,” said Russell. “He always tries to learn, tries to work harder, and is always in the gym with us, so I try to talk to him a lot. He always wants to hear what the older players have to say. He’s a smart kid and he’ll have a great career.”
Denmark’s path forward in this tournament is a tough one, needing wins against Switzerland and Finland to advance, but Russell remains positive.
“We’re still going for the quarterfinals,” he insisted. “We have six points with two games to go. Austria beat Finland so anything can happen in this group.”
To make that happen, he said, “We’ve gotta try to put more of a 60-minute game together. It’s been a little too much up and down. Today we found a way to win, which is big, and we’ve gotta build on that.”
If there’s a positive, it’s that the Danes cannot be relegated from this tournament as they co-host next year’s World Championship with Sweden. Russell, who at the time was in the Edmonton Oilers organization, was able to play the last time Denmark hosted in 2018.
“It means the world; it was such a cool experience,” he said. “It will be great for Danish ice hockey and for all the fans in Denmark.”