Slovakia uses strong 2nd period to double up U.S. for 1st men's world juniors win

Dalibor Dvorsky, Robert Baco and Filip Mesar scored in a 3:19 span in the second period and Slovakia beat the United States 6-3 on Wednesday in the world junior championship.

Tyler Boucher of OHL's Ottawa 67's scores twice for Americans

The Associated Press · Posted: Dec 28, 2022 7:26 PM EST | Last Updated: December 29, 2022

A Slovakian player screams in celebration when passing by his team's bench, on the right side of the picture, after scoring a goal. — The Slovakian team edged the U.S. 6-3 on Wednesday in men's world junior hockey championship action. (Chris Tanouye/IIHF)

Dalibor Dvorsky, Robert Baco and Filip Mesar scored in a 3:19 span in the second period and Slovakia beat the U.S. 6-3 on Wednesday in the world junior championship.

Libor Nemec, Peter Repcik and Alex Ciernik also scored for Slovakia and captain Simon Nemec — the No. 2 overall NHL pick by New Jersey this year, had three assists in the Group B game.

"After this game, you can't be tired," Simon Nemec said after playing a game-high 25:31. "A lot of good things in this game."

Adam Gajan made 33 saves to help Slovakia rebound from an opening 5-2 loss to Finland on Tuesday.

"I thought their goaltender was the best player on the ice tonight," U.S. coach Rand Pecknold of Quinnipiac said. "That said, we need to tighten things and our guys know that."

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Tyler Boucher of the Ontario Hockey League's Ottawa 67's scored twice for United States. Michigan forward Gavin Brindley added a goal and Colorado College goalie Kaidan Mbereko made 20 saves. The Americans opened Monday with a 5-2 victory over Latvia.

The U.S. will face Switzerland on Thursday.

"I think we're going to have a bounce-back here," Boucher said. "We're hungry."

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