After the break, the coach of the Lithuanian national ice hockey team spoke about the gold of the world championship: “Nothing is impossible”

The fans gathered at Twinsbet Arena in the capital city rose from their seats for the first time on Wednesday in the 4th minute when Markas Kaleinikova scored.

Fans of the second goal had to wait until the beginning of the third quarter, when in the 40th minute. Paulius Gintautas finally broke through the Chinese goalkeeper Shifeng Chen.

The most interesting goal fell with 1.2 seconds left. until the end of the match – the Lithuanians, who had a quantitative advantage, decided to attack at the last second, and the opponent’s goalkeeper pressed the puck with his hand. This is a foul and the referees awarded a penalty.

It was successfully realized by Martynas Grinius.

“We controlled the game, we were basically better. It is a pity that we were not able to realize the quantitative advantage. I think we need to be more confident and shoot more at the goal”, said Markas Kaleinikov, who scored the first goal against the Chinese goal, playing in Poland, after the victory.

So, in the end, the situation in the championship is as if ordered: the fate of the championship gold medal will be decided in the last match of the tournament between the Lithuanian and Ukrainian teams.

Both of them have equal victories, but the Ukrainians scored 27 goals and missed just one, while the Lithuanians scored 15 times and pulled the puck out of their goal 3 times.

However, these statistics are worth nothing – the team that wins the match will win the gold medal and get a ticket to Group A of Division I.

“We analyzed the Chinese, we saw that they are very fast. That team has a characteristic – they are young and fast, – Arūnas Aleinikovas, the assistant strategist of the Lithuanian team, summed up the match. – We immediately decided that we will play physically, the fight will be more body to body. We wanted to stretch their defense in all directions. It seemed to be successful, but there was a lack of realization. If there were more goals, then everything would be very good.”

– National team goalkeeper Mantas Armalis received the prize of the best player of the match. How important is he to the team? A. Aleinikov was asked.

– The fact that all our players are important. We are only happy and proud that hockey players are coming to represent Lithuania.

Let’s put it this way: you can’t make a goalkeeper even better in a couple of weeks. Goalkeepers come to the national team as they are.

We can talk more about psychology. They have to come to the match more psychologically prepared.

All the conditions are created for this in the national team – they analyze the opponents, see all the nuances and use the accumulated knowledge.

– The match on Friday will be decisive, when we will have to fight for the first place against Ukraine. What are the unexploited reserves or trump cards of the Lithuanian team?

– Our main trump card is to play with a big heart. As I said before, we are a big family. And our important trump card is that we don’t find fault, we don’t point fingers at those who made mistakes, but we try to correct them.

– Has the national team already shown everything it is capable of?

– We’ll see on Friday.

– Do you believe that you can beat Ukraine?

– We played a friendly match with them. I will not say that the Ukrainians are invincible, although we lost the control match.

If the players fulfill all the coaches’ requirements, then we can definitely play with them. Nothing is impossible in modern hockey.