Finland blow Norway by 5-2 in Ice Hockey WC

Defending champion Finland scored a massive victory against Norway in the Ice Hockey World Championship 2021 at Arena Riga in Latvia on Tuesday.

The Lions beat the neighbouring Norway in its third group match by 5 goals to 2 completely dominating over the opponents in the whole game.

Although the Norwegians took lead of the match at the very beginning after Mathis Olimb scored a goal at the second minute, Iiro Pakarinen leveled the score at the 15th minute in the first period.

The opening goal of Norway was sponsored by a bad giveaway of goalkeeper Jussi Olkinuora behind his own goal.

After equalizing the score, the Finns created repeated pressure on the opponents and two more goals by Anton Lundell and Kim Nousiainen widened the difference.

Tobias Lindstrom of Norway narrowed down the gap at 42nd minute in the third period but the Finns ensured the 5-2 victory after Jere Innala and Hannes Bjorninen scored at 48th and 54th minutes respectively.

"We trusted our own game and tried to play better and better," Jere Innala, one of the scorers told IIHF after the match, adding, "I think it was a good game after that first Norwegian goal today."

"We played okay, but we can play better," Petri Kontiola told IIHF.

He said that they worked really hard and created a lot of chances and expressed his optimism to keep it on.

Through the victory Finland placed third in the group B with seven points behind Latvia ( seven points) and Germany who are in the top with 9 points. USA remained at fourth with six points followed by Kazakhstan, Norway, Canada and Italy.

Earlier, in two previous matches, Finland scored victory against the USA and lost to Kazakhistan in penalty shoutout.

The Finns will face Italy in its fourth group match on Thursday.