Herning, Denmark – After an opening period without goals, the United States assured its place in the quarterfinals of the World Ice Hockey Championship with a 6-1 defeat of Kazakhstan on Sunday.
The Americans are tied in group B with the Czech Republic in 14 points, one more than Switzerland. The already qualified Czechs and Swiss have two more games to play in the preliminary round. United States completes the group stage against the Czech Republic on Tuesday.
“I thought we were ready to play outside the door,” said American chief coach Ryan Warsoftky. “We need to continue building and preparing for what will be a great challenge on Tuesday against the Czechs.”
Despite an unproductive period in Herning, the United States jumped to a dominant advantage of five goals in the second.
Frank Nazar broke the dead point 6:58 in the period with a shot from the left circle on Sergei Kudryavtsev’s glove. The striker added two assists later in the game.
Defender Jackson Lacombe stained a shot from the blue line through heavy traffic to double the advantage with 8:14 for the second period.
The next two goals arrived within 58 seconds.
The striker Tage Thompson scored his fifth in the tournament, after receiving a pass from the Zeev Buium defense, to put the 3-0 with 6:00 remaining. Matty Beniers increased the advantage to four from the left circle before Michael Kesselring scored with a high shot from a tight angle from the tables 56 seconds before the end of the period.
The United States defensive star, Zach Werenski, skated towards the goal before beating the backing goalkeeper, Maxim Pavlenko, who reached the beginning of the final period.
Goalkeeper Jeremy Swayman made 16 salvages for the United States
In Stockholm, Austria beat Slovenia 3-2 in a shooting to keep their hopes of reaching the quarterfinals for the first time. Austria is tied fourth with Slovakia in Group A.
The four best teams in each group will advance.
Later on Sunday, Switzerland meets Hungary in Herning and Slovakia plays Latvia in Stockholm.
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