In a quarterfinal matchup, Finland and Slovakia locked horns for a semifinal spot in the 2025 World Junior Championship. The Finns rode their top players offensively and held onto a 5-3 win over Slovakia.
Game Recap
It did not take long for Finland to get on the board, with Jesse Kiiskinen (Detroit Red Wings) benefiting from a turnover forced by his teammates in the offensive zone. This led to Jesse Nurmi (New York Islanders) having a shot on the net rebound to Kiiskinen for a quick goal on Slovakia’s netminder, Alan Lendak. The goal came less than two minutes into the game. Lendak would give up another goal to Finland a few minutes later when Kiiskinen returned the favor to Nurmi, finding him with a smooth cross-ice pass on a zone entry that Nurmi fired past Lendak’s glove top shelf for an early 2-0 Finland lead. The Czechs did get a chance to get themselves going on the power play, but Finnish netminder Petteri Rimpinen stood tall to shut down the Czechia power play.
The game would stay at a 2-0 lead for Finland until just under seven minutes to go in the period after Finland failed to cash in on a power play attempt of their own. Kasper Halttunen (San Jose Sharks) threw a low shot at Lendak that looked to be redirected, but he was ultimately given credit for the goal, pushing the Finland lead to 3-0. After the goal, the Slovaks turned to Samuel Urban in the net after Lendak gave up three goals on five shots. The period ended at a 3-0 Finland lead, even though Slovakia held a 9-7 lead in shots after 20 minutes.
Finland thought they had an early goal to start the second period, but after Slovakia challenged it, the goal was overturned due to goaltender interference. Slovakia was given a five-minute power play after Finnish defenseman Emil Pieniniemi (Pittsburgh Penguins) was given a major penalty and a game misconduct for kneeing. The Finland penalty kill was perfect heading into the five-minute kill, but it would give up a goal to Slovakia. Slovakia forced a turnover behind the net that led to good puck movement, ending with Dalibor Dvorsky (St. Louis Blues) making a cross-ice pass to Juraj Pekarcik (St. Louis Blues) to get on the board, 3-1 halfway through the game. Finland did add another goal before the end of the period, with Rasmus Kumpulainen (Minnesota Wild) taking advantage of a puck thrown at the net by Benjamin Rautiainen to make it 4-1 after 40 minutes.
A back-and-forth first half of the third saw both Rimpinen and Urban standing tall until Slovakia finally broke the ice when Robert Fedor scored right out in front of Rimpinen to make things 4-2 with just over ten minutes left. Finland fought off a Slovakia power play chance with just over eight minutes left, and to make it even more interesting, a six-on-four penalty kill with the Slovaks pulling Urban to try and get the game within a goal. A resilient and no-quit attitude from Slovakia paid off, with Dvorsky finding a loose puck in a scrum out front to beat Rimpinen, who was down on his stomach trying to find the puck himself. The goal made it a 4-3 Finland lead with under four minutes left.
But Finland answered back with two minutes left. Nurmi scored his second goal off a faceoff win to push Finland’s lead to two, 5-3. They would ride that lead to a victory, moving on to the tournament’s semifinal round.
In the win, Rimpinen again stood tall for Finland, making 33 saves. Urban made 11 saves on 13 shots.
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