MOSCOW, April 25 (R-Sport) - The United States used a balanced attack and a relentless flurry of shots to beat Sweden 4-0 in the quarterfinals of the under-18 hockey world championships Thursday.
With the win, the Americans move on to the semifinals, where they’ll face the winner of Thursday’s quarterfinal game between Russia and Germany. Sweden, meanwhile, is eliminated.
The outcome Thursday mirrored the last three finals at the under-18 tournament, in which the Americans beat the Swedes in the gold-medal game.
The US opened the scoring at 13:14 of the first period when defenseman Will Butcher corralled his own rebound and wired a low-lying slap shot past Swedish goalie Jonas Johansson.
Less than six minutes later, Tyler Motte made it 2-0 on his fifth goal of the tournament when he pounced on a lucky bounce off Swedish defenseman Robert Hagg’s skate and flipped it past Johansson.
Mike McCarron’s scored his first of the tournament on the power play at 46:50 in the third period before J.T. Compher sealed the victory with an open-net goal at 55:08.
After taking 50 shots on net in their 2-1 loss to Finland in the final game of the preliminary round on Tuesday, the US fired a similar barrage at Sweden. They took 41 shots.
Earlier in the day, Slovakia beat Latvia 5-2. In other quarterfinals action, Finland plays Switzerland, Canada plays the Czech Republic and Russia faces off against Germany in a highly anticipated game at the Bolshoi Ice Dome.
