Although the matchup was always going to be unbalanced, few could have expected the pummeling that Czechia handed to Kazakhstan on Day 3 of the 2025 World Junior Championship. After 60 minutes, three Czech players scored hat tricks as the Czechs surged ahead to defeat Kazakhstan 14-2, making it the highest-scoring game of the tournament thus far.
Game Recap
Czechia’s first goal came just five minutes into the game from alternate captain Matej Mastalirsky, who picked up a juicy rebound from Jakub Fibigr’s initial shot. It was just the Czech’s second shot of the game, foreshadowing what was to come. Sure enough, six seconds later, Jakub Stancl picked up the loose puck off the faceoff and fed Petr Sikora for Czechia’s second goal.
Petr Sikora strikes just SIX seconds later for Czechia 😱#WorldJuniors pic.twitter.com/RYxllTf3UB
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) December 28, 2024
It took another five minutes before Czechia once again broke through Kazakhstan’s defences, with Jakub Dvorak finding a corner behind Vladimir Nikitin to score their third goal. That was it for the big Kazakh goalie, who had faced just 10 shots, and he was replaced with backup Jokhar Dudarkiyev. However, on just his second shot of the game, he was beaten by a deflection from Vojtech Hradec, who caught a piece of defenceman Vojtech Port’s big wrist shot from the hash marks. Kazakhstan finished the first period on a high note, with Kirill Lyapunov firing the puck by Jan Kavan while on the powerplay after Miroslav Holinka went to the box for tripping.
But that would be the only glimmer of hope Kazakhstan would see for the next 20 minutes. Early in the second period, Port showed off some of his excellent mobility, creating space to fire a puck right onto Adam Jecho’s stick for Czechia’s fifth goal, and less than two minutes later, Mastalirsky scored his second goal, an unassisted effort after he picked up a turnover from Kazakh defender Gleb Reshetko. Barely a minute after that, Stancl scored his first of the game on a beautiful feed from Sikora, and then Mastalirsky put away his third off the rush thanks to a sharp pass from Dominik Petr.
Related: Guide to the 2025 World Junior Championship
Not even eight minutes had passed in the second period, and the game was already out of reach for Kazakhstan at 7-1. Desperate for any momentum, Nikitin was returned to the net, but he was beaten five-hole by Stancl, on the short side by Adam Novotny, off the rebound by Hradec, and on a one-timer from Vojtech Cihar, all within the next five minutes. Mercifully, the second period ended 12-1, and Kazakhstan’s Alexander Kim scored one more to open the third, but two more goals by Stancl and Hradec to finish off each of their hat tricks, added insult to injury.
It was a dismal showing from Kazakhstan after a resilient effort against Sweden, with both goalies facing a combined 36 shots. They’ll get a rest day before returning to action on Dec. 30 against Slovakia.
Czechia will return tomorrow to also face the Slovaks at 5:00 PM EST where they’ll look to extend their undefeated streak.
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