Host nation Slovakia overcame a stubborn Latvian team to secure top spot in Group A. A 5-2 win in Trencin on Monday evening wrapped up the preliminary round and secured a quarter-final meeting with Denmark at a raucous Pavol Demitra Stadium on Wednesday.

Captain Adam Goljer led the way with two goals, and there were further tallies from Lucian Bernat and Timothy Kazda as the home crowd celebrated another memorable evening. Four of the Slovak goals came on the power play.

Kristers Obuks scored late in the first period for Latvia, making a game of it until Slovakia took it away early in the third.

Slovakia looked for a fast start – and got it. Inside four minutes the home team had a five-on-three power play and parleyed that into two goals.

First came Bernat, wiring a shot through traffic and in off the underside of the bar to open the scoring.

That was Bernat’s first goal of the tournament, and while Oliver Botka was credited with the assist, the Slovak forward also paid credit to a colleague behind the scenes.

“In the first three games I had chances on my stick but I couldn’t score,” Bernat said. “I was wondering what to do before the game so I gave my stick to our lucky guy, Jakub Muser. He played with it, and then finally I got one in. So, credit for him as well.”

The power play continued, the crowd roared for another, and they got it within a minute. Captain Goljer, one of a sizeable Trencin contingent on this time, hammered home a one-timer off Samuel Sramaty’s feed to the blue line.

But Latvia got a huge lift with yesterday’s win over Norway – its biggest victory at the U18 Worlds – and wanted to maintain that momentum. Instead of folding, Olegs Sorokins’ team dug deep and began to test Slovak nerves.
 
The game did not develop into the procession most of the crowd craved. And as the first period drew to a close, Latvia pulled one back. It started with Obuks bringing play into Slovak territory and producing a deft dangle to get away from a defender. And it finished with the same player scoring from close range after Samuel Hrenak scrambled to deny Oliver Murnieks from close range.

Neither team could score in the second period, but there could no complaint about the entertainment on offer in an end-to-end game. Both teams looked to move forward at every opportunity, and the open action was typified by a thrilling passage midway through the session.

First Slovakia’s Bernat raced clear on a breakaway. His advance was halted by Ricards Lisovskis, whose stretch pass sent Obuks clear of the defence. With Filip Kovalcik desperately trying to catch the forward, Hrenak pulled off a save that had his hometown crowd singing his name.

“For a long time we were pretty close in the game but we didn’t score,” said Latvian scorer Obuks. “In the end it went the other way. The Slovak power play really made the difference.”

The home team survived some anxious moments in the middle frame, and came out for the third ready to settle the outcome. Kazda saw his shot hit the inside of the post and fly across the front of the net to relative safety. But Latvia could not clear its lines and the play returned to the point for Goljer to smash home his second of the game.

As a Dukla Trencin defender, Goljer was already a popular figure here before this competition: now he’s up to 2+2 from four games, tied for third among blue liners. From local hero to national hero? The journey could be complete in a few more days.

And another local boy, Kazda, maintained his fine form with a power play goal to make it 4-1. That moves him to 4+1 in the tournament, while Sramaty completed a hat-trick of helpers in this game.

“Tonight we knew it was an important game and in the first half our game wasn’t really what we wanted,” added Bernat. “It was a bit too safe, we were worrying about the result.

“But then in the locker room we talked about what we wanted, and we did it in the third.”

In the closing stages, Latvia killed a penalty for the first time in the game and even got a consolation goal from Stefans Rots with two to play. But an empty net goal from Sebastian Brath ensured there was no way back for the Baltic nation, which now travels to Bratislava to play Group B winner USA in the knock-out rounds.

Slovakia celebrated another big win as the drums pounded in the arena. And Martin Dendis's team goes into the quarter-finals with every hope of claiming a medal.