Remember Jacob de la Rose, that forward drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in 2013? Despite not playing in the National Hockey League for two years, the Swede always finds a way to excel and he did just that at the IIHF World Championship on Thursday.
The 27-year-old centre-back scored twice in his country’s easy 7-1 win against Hungary in Tampere. The Swedes are still undefeated in this tournament after four games.
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De la Rose wore the CH jersey for four seasons, between 2014 and 2018. After receiving a dispensation that year, he continued his career with the Detroit Red Wings and then the St. Louis Blues. Since then he has been playing in the elite league of his country and in Switzerland.
The Arvika native doubled the Three Crowns’ lead by breaking away in the first half. He scored his second goal at the end of the second period, skilfully completing Marcus Sorensen’s play.
Lucas Raymond, Jonatan Berggren, Andre Pettersson and Oscar Lindberg also scored for Sweden. Roland Kiss was the only goal scorer for the Hungarians who did not deflect a single shot into the goal defended by Jesper Wallstedt in the last 40 minutes of the game.
Switzerland keeps its place
In Riga, Switzerland remained at the top of Group B ahead of their expected clash with Canada. The Swiss team defeated Slovakia 4-2.
It was the first two goals conceded by the Swiss, who had previously knocked out Slovenia, Norway and Kazakhstan. There are tougher games ahead of this country, but the headliners are doing well so far.
Jonas Siegenthaler, supported by Nico Hischier, and Nino Niederreiter scored in the first half of the game. After the tie was struck, Christian Marti and Gaetan Haas made the difference with goals in the third period.
Switzerland (12 points) and Canada (11 points) both had four wins, but the Maple Leafs needed the shootout for one of them. Their game is on Saturday.
Czech Republic wakes up late
Without necessarily worrying too much, the Czechs had to come back and beat the Slovenians 6-2.
Detroit Red Wings forward Dominik Kubalik led the tournament with four extra points, including a hat-trick. He now has six goals and ten points, ahead of Canada defender MacKenzie Weegar (eight points).
Before the Kubalik machine kicked in, Slovenia surprised the Czech Republic with an excellent start to the game. Miha Verlic and Jan Urbas scored in the first half and the Slovenians kept the lead until the third period. The Czechs then scored five times in the last 20 minutes. Slovenia still hopes for their first win in this tournament.
For their part, the Germans scored their first points of the competition by beating the Danes 6-4. On the backhand, Montreal Canadiens junior Frederik Dichow made 29 saves from 33 shots.