Monday, December 26, 2011

U.S. shuts down Denmark

Press Release

EDMONTON – Team USA began its medal three-peat campaign with a lopsided 11-3 victory over Denmark. The newly-promoted Scandinavians broke down after a pesky performance in the first period.

Charlie Coyle scored a hat trick while Kyle Rau netted two goals. The first line with Coyle, captain Jason Zucker and Brandon Saad accounted for five goals.

Denmark scored all its goals on the man advantage including two from the towering 18-year-old forward Mathias Bau-Hansen.

The United States' first line put itself on the scoreboard after already 24 seconds when Zucker passed along the blueline to defenceman Jon Merrill, who saw his shot from the blueline deflected into the net by Coyle.

However, Denmark didn’t give up that quickly. Dressed in red, the Danes were welcomed by the Canadian crowd of 13,604 spectators almost like the home team. And they cheered on any good movement from the underdogs. Like their first scoring chance by Patrick Bjorkstrand after one minute of play, or when Mads Eller delivered a great hit against Jarred Tinordi, or Sebastien Feuk had a huge glove save against a wrist shot from Coyle in front of the net.

The noise level was on a high when Denmark scored goals. They did so at 3:12 when capitalizing on the first power play. Nicklas Jensen shot from the blueline while Mathias Bau-Hansen screened U.S. goalkeeper Jack Campbell to deflect the puck into the American net.

Zucker regained the lead for the U.S. again one minute later. After receiving the puck at the redline he overran Danish defenceman Mark Larsen to score the 2-1 goal. At 8:26 Tinordi extended the lead with a shot that went in via Patrick Maden’s skates. But Bau-Hansen kept Denmark’s hope alive with his second power-play marker just one minute later.

U.S. head coach Dean Blais could hardly be happy with the first period of his first World Juniors game since winning gold in Saskatoon in 2010, but he seemed to have found the right words in his address during the first intermission.

Nick Bjugstad, Coyle, Rau and Bill Arnold netted four goals within less than eight minutes. Denmark coach Todd Bjorkstrand reacted and replaced goalie Feuk with Dennis Jensen, but the latter was defeated for the first time only half a minute later when J.T. Miller scored on a power play. Rau made it 9-2 with his second goal with four minutes left in the middle stanza.

Thomas Spelling cut the lead with another Danish power-play goal, but Coyle completed his hat trick with the 10-3 goal at 11:04 of the third period. Stephen Johns hit the back of the net for the final score of 11-3.

With the lopsided victory the United States took the lead in the Edmonton group ahead of archrival Canada.

Denmark continues tomorrow against the Czech Republic while the Americans take on Finland on Wednesday.

(Nathan can be reached at fourniern@students.nescom.edu)

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