In battle of past two first-round picks by Blues, 2024 first-round defenseman gets assist in win despite Dvorsky goal;

In a battle of the past two No. 1 picks by the St. Louis Blues, Adam Jiricek got the best of Dalibor Dvorsky.

Czechia remained unbeaten on Sunday on the fourth day of the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship, doubling up Slovakia, 4-2, in Ottawa.

Czechia also boasts three other Blues prospects, including forwards Jakub Stancl, Adam Jecho and Ondrej Kos.

The win moves Czechia to 3-0-0-0 and it helped it keep pace with Sweden, a 7-5 winner over Switzerland to move the Swedes also to 3-0-0-0.

Defending gold medal winner USA lost for the first time and fell to 2-0-1-0 when it lost 4-3 in overtime against Finland.

* Czechia 4, Slovakia 2 -- Jiricek, the 16th pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, had an assist, as did Jecho, a 2024 third-round pick. It offset another goal for Dvorsky, who scored late in the game to make the score more respectable, ripping a one-timer from the right circle with 5:08 remaining:

Jiricek was a plus-2 and played 17:13; Jecho was a plus-1 in 8:55 of ice time but had this beautiful backhand sauce assist:

Stancl, a 2023 fourth-round pick who came into Sunday as the leading scorer of the tournament with four goals and three assists in two games, was kept off the scoreboard despite a team-leading six shots; and Kos, a 2024 third round pick, was a minus-1 in just 7:02 of ice time.

Dvorsky, the 10th pick in the 2023 draft who now has two goals and one assist in three games, had four shots and was a minus-3 in 22:03, while Juraj Pekarcik, a 2023 third-round pick, was also a minus-3 in 20:20.

* Sweden 7, Switzerland 5 -- The scoreline indicates a close game but the Swedes were never threatened despite Switzerland (0-0-0-3) scoring four third-period power-play goals.

Otto Stenberg (2023, first round, 25th overall) scored, and Theo Lindstein (2023, first round, 29th overall) assisted on the goal which gave Sweden a 3-1 lead at 18:52 of the first period:

Stenberg was a minus-1 with two shots in 18:30 of ice time, while Lindstein played 19:34 with three shots on goal.

* Finland 4, USA 3, OT -- Ralph did not factor in the scoring in 10:30 of ice time and was a minus-1 in the game in USA's first loss after two wins.

The 2024 second-round pick, who is playing college hockey this season at St. Cloud State, was paired with University of Wisconsin's Logan Hensler.

* Looking ahead -- Dvorsky, Pekarcik and Slovakia face winless Kazakhstan in a very winnable game on Monday at 11 a.m. in the lone game with Blues prospects on USA Network in the US and TSN in Canada.