Russia claims top spot in Group D

Russia followed up the clear win against Italy and the over-time win against Czech Republic with a solid 4-1 win against Denmark.

Maksim Afinogenov, Aleksandr Ovechkin, Sergei Fedorov and Konstantin Gorovikov scored the Russian goals while Kim Staal scored the Danish goal shortly before the end.

"It was an ok result", said Kim Staal. "We played very well in the first period but then they owned the rest of the game".

Denmark is qualified for the next stage thanks to the win against Italy a couple of days ago. "The rest of the tournament will be very exciting", says Staal. "I look forward to play against Belarus, Switzerland and Sweden. Especially Sweden as I have lived there for 10-12 years".

Maksim Afinogenov opened the scoring in the middle of the first period. He was assisted by Aleksandr Radulov who still is extremely popular in Quebec City after his successful years in Quebec Remparts.

Prior to the goal the game had been relatively even but the Russian team woke up and had lots of scoring chances the later half of the period. Denmark had one good chance to score when Peter Regin almost buried it at 18 minutes.

The NHL top goal scorer Aleksandr Ovechkin made it 2-0 on a one-timer at 27:07 and Sergei Fedorov scored 3-0 on a beautiful deflection. The goal was allowed after a video review because of a suspected high stick.

After two periods Denmark was out-shot 30-8 but Patrick Galbraith in the Danish net played a terrific game. Especially memorable was the glove catch on a shot by Ilya Kovalchuk 6 minutes into the second period.

"We really wanted to beat them, but they were better than us", said Galbraith after the game.

Konstantin Gorovikov scored from the corner to take Russia to a 4-0 lead at 2:47 of the last period. Kim Staal scored the only Danish goal of the game when Denmark got a power-play opportunity a few minutes before the end.

Russia - Denmark 4-1 (1-0,2-0,1-1)
1-0 Maksim Afinogenov (D Grebeshkov, A Radulov)
2-0 Aleksandr Ovechkin (S Fedorov, I Kovalchuk) PP
3-0 Sergei Fedorov (K Korneev, I Kovalchuk) PP
4-0 Konstantin Gorovikov (S Mozyakin, M Sushinsky)
4-1 Kim Staal (L Eller) PP

sections: Sport