Czech Republic 7 Denmark 1
EDMONTON — Tomas Hertl scored twice as the Czech Republic opened the world junior hockey championship by blasting Denmark 7-0 on Tuesday.
Petr Holik, Dmitrij Jaskin, Tomas Filippi, Jiri Riha and Radek Faksa each had singles for the Czechs, while goaltender Petr Mrazek needed to make only 12 saves for the shutout.
“I’m very pleased to score my first two goals in the world junior championship, and I’m very happy that I could help my team,” Hertl said through a translator. “We knew we had to win and that’s what we did.”
The only previous meeting between the two teams was at the 2008 world juniors, a 5-2 win by the Czechs (1-0).
The Czechs started off slowly, scoring only once on Hertl’s deflection despite outshooting the Danes 16-2.
But Hertl and Faksa each scored in the second before the Czechs exploded with four goals in the third.
Sebastian Feuk stopped 37 shots for Denmark (0-2), which is off to an ugly start at the tournament after losing 11-3 to the United States on Monday.
Slovakia 3, Latvia 1
At Calgary, Jur Simboch made 25 saves as Slovakia scored twice in the third period to beat Latvia.
Tomas Jurco, Michal Toman and Marek Tvrdon each scored for Slovakia (1-0) in its opening game at the tournament.
Juris Ziemins scored the lone goal for Latvia (0-2), which was trying to rebound after losing 9-4 to Sweden on Monday.
After a scoreless first period, Ziemins gave Latvia a 1-0 lead just over six minutes into the second.
Jurco tied the game on the power play nine minutes later, and Tvrdon’s goal two minutes into the third proved to be the winner.
Toman added an empty-net goal in the final minute to cap the scoring.