Czechia crushes Austria in shutout world junior victory

Czechia didn’t think too fondly of Austria on Tuesday, beating them 9-0 on Tuesday evening in Halifax.

The win keeps them and Sweden as the only undefeated teams in Group A after the Czechs beat Canada on Monday. Austria has been outscored 20-0 over two games after losing 11-0 to the Swedes.

Czechia’s dominance was apparent right off the bat, scoring 3:50 into the power play. After goaltender Tomas Suchanek got the puck to Stanislav Svozil, Jakub Brabenec eventually capitalized on the man advantage to make it 1-0. Jiri Kulich and Petr Hauser each scored to finish the period, making it 3-0 Czechia.

It only got uglier from there. Gabriel Szturc scored just over a minute into the middle stanza before Marcel Marcel potted one that was ultimately taken back. The Czechs quickly answered back, with defenseman Ales Cech sending a far shot from the blueline to make it 5-0 for real. Kulich and Gabriel Szturc each scored their second to close out the period, while Kulich completed the hat-trick eight seconds into the third on a breakaway.

David Spacek finished off the scoring with under five minutes to go to make it 9-0, leading to some heavy boos from the fans in Halifax.

Suchanek stopped all eight shots sent his way, while Austria’s Michael Sicher made 38 stops.