Mr. Verenis finished the match in the hospital, playing with the second goalkeeper, the Lithuanians defeated the Netherlands and secured the championship medals

The World Division I Group B tournament will continue on Tuesday at the Vilnius “Twinsbet” arena, where the Lithuanian national team seeks to enter a higher division and overtake the national teams of the Netherlands, China, Estonia, Spain and Ukraine.

In the third match of the championship, the Lithuanians led by Ron Pasco after a hard fight 3:2 (0:0, 2:1, 1:1) defeated the Netherlands and secured at least bronze medals.

This time, the goal of the Lithuanian national team was defended from the start by a 23-year-old debutant of the men’s national team at the IIHF World Championships Faust Nausėda.

From the beginning of the match, the Lithuanians visited the opponent’s zone more often, but more accurate shots were lacking.

After a little more than half of the quarter, the forward went to the locker room Povilas Verenis, who clutched his wrist after a collision with an opponent and did not appear again in the first half. A little later, it turned out that Mr. Verenis suffered a serious injury and was taken to the hospital, and it is not yet clear whether he will be able to continue the championship at all.

In the last minutes of the first half, the Lithuanians created even more dangerous episodes, but they failed to score a goal.

At the very end of the first half, the referees recorded a violation of the Lithuanian national team due to the players entering the field too early, so the Lithuanians started the second half playing in the minority.

The Netherlands used up the first majority very quickly: after just a minute Jay Huisman (20:59 min.) scored his country’s first goal in this championship after confusion at the Lithuanian goal and put the Netherlands ahead 1:0.

Fortunately, the lead for the Netherlands could not be maintained for long: Mark Kaleinikov (23:01 min., translation by E.Pročenko and N.Ališauskas) repeated Edgar Protčenko’s shot and equalized the result – 1:1.

Although the Netherlands struck more often in this half, but in the 36th minute of the meeting Emilius Krakauskas played great defense and intercepted the puck, stepped up the attack and made a pass from the end line Nerij Ališauskas (35:31 min., directed by E. Krakauskas and U. Čižas), who shot accurately from a distance and put the Lithuanian national team ahead 2:1. In this attack, a lot of work was done by Tadas Kumeliauskaswho successfully blocked the shot of the goalkeeper of the Dutch national team.

Just before the end of the second half, the Netherlands already earned 2 penalty minutes, but in the third half, the Lithuanians could not use the quantitative advantage.

In the middle of the third quarter, he created a great attack Ugnius Čižas, after which the puck reached M.Kaleinikova, who hit the goal hard. Although he failed to score, the puck bounced to the side, where free U.Čižas (48:20, rez. transfer M.Kaleinikovas and P.Gintautas) scored his first goal in this championship – 3:1.

6 minutes left to play. 33 sec. a fantastic goal was scored by a member of the fourth attacking trio Lennart Vosmer (53:26), who scored a very difficult goal from the right edge and reduced the deficit to a minimum – 2:3.

The Netherlands put a lot of pressure on the Lithuanians, and at the end of the match they replaced the goalkeeper with the sixth player. However, the Lithuanian opponents themselves had a penalty, so they played 5 against 5 and still without a goalkeeper, and the result remained unchanged and the Lithuanians celebrated a difficult victory.

In this match, the Lithuanians made 29 shots on goal, and the Netherlands – 20.

N.Ališauskas was recognized as the most useful player in the Lithuanian national team.

The Lithuanians had no problems in the first two matches and defeated Spain 3-0 and beat Estonia 6-1, while the Netherlands lost 0-3 to China and 0-4 to Ukraine.

After this meeting, the Lithuanians will have a duel with the strongest teams – on Wednesday from 7:30 p.m. will face China, and on Friday also from 7:30 p.m. – with Ukraine.

However, it is already clear that the Lithuanians will not be defeated by any of the already defeated teams, so at least the Lithuanian national team has already secured the bronze medals.

The men’s national teams of Lithuania and the Netherlands have not met recently, and they last played at the World Championship only in 2017, when the Lithuanians won 8-0. Before that, Lithuanians and Dutch representatives often played in the same division: in 2012 The Netherlands won 7-1 in 2013. – 5:3, but in 2014 the Lithuanians already celebrated a 4:0 victory, and in 2015 – 1:0.

The last time the men’s ice hockey championship was held in Lithuania was in 2018. In Kaunas, in the “Žalgiris” arena, and then Mindaugas Kieras, the current assistant to the head coach of the Lithuanian national team, played his 20th World Championship in a row and together with the entire Lithuanian national team won gold medals and moved up to the IA division. However, already the next year, the Lithuanians won only one victory in the higher division and had to return to the IB division. Finally, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the championships did not take place for two years, and in 2022 due to Russia starting a war in Ukraine, the IIHF excluded Belarus and Russia from the World Championship, so Lithuania got a place again in Division IA, where the Lithuanians won bronze medals in Slovenia. in 2023 The Lithuanian national team has not won a single victory in this division and is now in Vilnius aiming to return to a higher level.

Composition of the Lithuanian national team:

Defenders: Nerijus Ališauskas, Domantas Čypas, Edgaras Protčenko, Tomaš Krukovski, Kostas Gusevs, Paulius Rumševičius, Artur Seniut.

Strikers: Tadas Kumeliauskas, Povilas Verenis, Aivaras Bendžius, Paulius Gintautas, Ugnius Čižas, Ilja Četvertakas, Emilijus Krakauskas, Markas Kaleinikovas, Laisvydas Kudrevičius, Martynas Grinius, Eimantas Noreika, Dovydas Laimutis, Marijus Dumčius.

Goalkeepers: Mantas Armalis, Elvin Karla, Faustas Nausėda.

Schedule:

Score board

The course of the match: