WJC: Swiss win sends them to quarters and Finland to drawing board
Last year's defending champs reportedly fire entire coaching staff after team sent to relegation
Marco Miranda scored the only goal of the shootout as Switzerland edged Denmark 5-4 on Friday in preliminary round action at the world junior hockey championship.
The result means that Finland, the defending champions which are winless in three games, must play in the relegation round. It's the first time in tournament history that a country has gone from winning gold to playing relegation games the following year.
Drama in Team Finland. Coach Jukka Rautakorpi and 3 assistant coaches fired just now. Jussi Ahokas is the new head coach starting from now.
—@shoffrenYannick Zehnder struck twice in regulation for Switzerland (2-1-0) with Nando Eggenberger and Nico Hischier adding the other goals.
Joachim Blichfeld, Niklas Andersen, Mathias From and Alexander True all scored for the Danes (2-1-1).
Both teams advanced to the quarter-finals from Group A.
Slovakia doubles up Latvia
Marek Sloboda and Milos Roman had a goal and an assist each as Slovakia doubled up Latvia 4-2 on Friday night in preliminary round play at the world junior hockey championship.
Filip Lestan and Andrej Hatala also found the back of the net for Slovakia (1-2-0). Michal Roman tacked on two helpers.
Filips Buncis and Karlis Cukste scored for Latvia (0-4-0). Cukste's goal came 3:40 into the first period on Latvia's first shot of the game.
Latvia will face Finland in the relegation round, which starts on Monday in Montreal. Finland is the tournament's defending champion but hasn't won yet at the event (0-3-0).
Slovakia rounds out its Group B round robin on Saturday against Russia (1-2-0).