Slovakia claimed a shock shootout win counter to the United States to reach the semi-finals of the men’s ice hockey competition at the Beijing Games on Wednesday to set up a casual of claiming the country’s first ever Olympic medal in the sport game.
Peter Cehlarik settled triumph the victory as the only skater to score in the nail-biting shootout by beating U.S. netminder Strauss Mann after overtime varnished with the score tied at 2-2.
After Cehlarik scored the U.S. had one last casual to extend the shootout but Captain Andy Miele could not fight netminder Patrik Rybar and the Slovakia bench vented in wild celebration.
The U.S. seemed to have locked up a semi-final spot in decree leading 2-1 until Slovakia pulled Rybar for a spare attacker and were salaried with the equaliser from Captain Marek Hrivik with 46 seconds remaining to force overtime.
No one was able to score in the 10-minute spare while – sending both sides to a penalty shootout. Brendan Brisson, Sean Farrell, Matt Knies, Nathan Smith and Miele were incapable to find the back of the net for the U.S.
Slovakia star, Cehlarik, showed to be the difference – scoring after Libor Hudacek, Michal Cajkovsky, and Michal Kristof had been deprived of by U.S. netminder Mann.
The outcome came as a shock to the U.S. given the datum they had scored the most amount of goals (16) and permitted the least amount of goals in (5) during the group stages.
Whereas, Slovakia entered the playoff game having permitted 12 goals in during their last three turns.
The U.S. will be irritated with the consequence as the men’s crew have not medaled in the Winter Olympics since they appealed silver in the 2010 – losing out on the gold to Canada.
Meanwhile, Slovakia will be looking to push on in chase of their first ever medal in men’s ice hockey at the Olympic sports.
The furthest they have made it in the tournament before was the figurine medal match in 2010. However, they were trodden 5-3 by Finland.
