John Farinacci scored twice, Spencer Knight made 16 recoveries and the United States beat Slovakia 5-2 on Saturday night in the world junior ice hockey championship quarterfinals.
The Americans will confront Finland in the semifinals Monday night. Defending champion Canada will play Russia in the other semifinal. In different quarterfinals, Finland beat Sweden 3-2 on a late goal, Canada bested the Czech Republic 3-0, and Russia beat Germany 2-1.
Knight broadened the United States’ shutout streak to a competition record 218 minutes, 53 seconds before Matej Kaslik got through with 1:28 left in the second period to cut it to 3-1. After an opening 5-3 misfortune to Russia, the Americans beat Austria 11-0, the Czech Republic 7-0 and Sweden 4-0 to win Group B.
Arthur Kaliyev, Cole Caufield and Matthew Beniers additionally scored for the United States. Trevor Zegras had two helps to push his competition leading points complete to 15. The Boston University star has six goals – one behind Canada’s Dylan Cozens – and an event-high nine assists.
Kaliyev scored on a power play midway through the first period, Farinacci associated on deflection midway as the second progressed, and Caufield added a power-play goal with 3:31 left in the period.
Dominik Sojka pulled Slovakia to 3-2 on a power play with 10:10 left in the third, and Farinacci reestablished the two-goal margin with a wraparound with 4:14 to go. Beniers had an empty-netter.
Simon Latkoczy made 38 saves for Slovakia.
Finland defeated a 2-0 shortage to beat Sweden, tying it on Anton Lundell’s power-play goal with 8:56 left and winning on Roni Hirvonen’s wraparound with 25 seconds to go.
Henri Nikkanen pulled Finland within one in the second period, and Kari Piiroinen made 22 recoveries. Lucas Raymond and Elmer Soderblom had first-period goals for Sweden.
Devon Levi made 29 saves for Canada to close out the Czech Republic. Cozens had a goal and a help to push his points total to 13, and Bowen Byram and Connor McMichael likewise scored.
In the first quarterfinal, Vasili Ponomaryov and Danil Bashkirov scored and Yaroslav Askarov made 18 recoveries in Russia’s triumph over Germany. Florian Elias scored for Germany.
