After three days of action at the 2025 IIHF World Championship Division I Group A in Sfantu Gheorghe, Romania, four teams are in a tight race for the two promotion spots and two teams are tied at the bottom in a fight to avoid relegation.
The Day 3 results were:
- Great Britain over Japan 5-4 in overtime,
- Italy over Poland 4-1, and
- Ukraine over Romania 4-1.
Great Britain 5 – Japan 4 [OT] (1-0, 1-3, 2-1, 1-0)
Robert Dowd scored 41 seconds in to overtime, capitalizing on a turnover in his own end, carrying the puck the length of the ice and beating Japanese goaltender Yuta Narisawa over the glove to give Great Britain its third straight victory in the tournament. However, all three victories have been in extra time, giving the team only six of a possible nine points. It was Dowd’s second goal and third point of the game while Liam Kirk – playing his first game with the team after helping Eisbaren Berlin to a DEL title – had a goal and two assists.
“I’ll be honest, that third period was tough,” said Kirk, who assisted on Ben O’Connor’s game-tying goal with 1:49 remaining in regulation time. “I was feeling it in the legs a bit – celebrating with Berlin caught up with me. But it’s good to get that first one out of the way and to get the job done. And it’s good to be back with the boys and everyone – it’s fun.”
As for Japan, this was the team’s best effort of the tournament so far. The Japanese outshot Great Britain 30-21 through 40 minutes and led 3-2, but were back on their heels in the third and allowed GB to tie it twice.
“I think we played well today,” said Yushiroh Hirano, whose goal late in the second period gave Japan its first lead of the tournament. “We’ve gotten better over three games and today we had a great start in the first period, and we played mostly a good game but we were two minutes from closing it out and we didn’t. We’ve gotta finish hard together next game.”
Poland 1 – Italy 4 (1-0, 0-2, 0-2)
Trailing 1-0 after one period, Italy scored two goals in the second and two in the third to hand Poland its first loss of the tournament, 4-1. Daniel Ross Tedesco had a goal and an assist for Italy, and he now leads the team with five points in three games.
Poland’s Dominik Pas scored the only goal of a defensively-played first period. In the second, however, the Italians came out more offensively and Daniel Mantenuto tied it by finishing off a nice passing play. Poland challenged the play for offside but it was ruled a good goal, sending the Italians to the first of four power plays in the middle frame. They finally took the lead in the dying seconds of a four-minute power play on an Alex Trivellato one-timer.
“The game was very tight,” said Italian coach Jukka Jalonen. “The first period was very close, the second was quite a bit better but it’s difficult to say why. We fought hard and maybe we controlled pucks a little bit better in the second and third. But Poland is always a tough opponent so it’s a great win for us.”
“We had a good first period but the second period we had some bad changes and more PK time, so they got going,” said Polish captain Krystian Dziubinski. “Then we were chasing the game and they’re a very experienced team, Italy, they know how to play when they’re leading and that’s what they did.”
Poland tried to generate some offence in the third period but Italy’s solid team defence didn’t give up much in the way of quality scoring chances. Marco Zanetti and then Tedesco on a last-minute penalty shot rounded out the scoring.
Ukraine 4 – Romania 0 (3-0, 1-0, 0-0)
Ukraine took care of business early, scoring three times in the first nine minutes of the game, en route to a victory over host Romania. Andri Denyskin led the offence with two goals and an assist, while Bohdan Diachenko made 22 saves for the shutout.
The Ukrainians got some momentum on an early power play and Viktor Zakharov opened the scoring 11 seconds after it ended, putting in his own rebound after Zoltan Toke stopped the initial shot. Vitali Lialka made it 2-0 on a high wrister from the top of the slot through a heavy screen, and then Zakharov pounced on a turnover in the Romanian zone and dished to Denyskin, whose one-timer beat Toke over the blocker.
“The first period was huge for us,” said Denyskin. “We wanted to come out sharp. We knew that Team Romania were going to try to draw us into playing their game, which would make it hard for us to win. We knew the first 10 minutes were going to be really important and we came out flying, and it shows on the scoreboard.”
“If we’d had a better start, the game might have gone a different way but I can’t take any credit away from Ukraine – they were very good,” said Romanian forward Roberto Gliga.
Toke was lifted in favour of Attila Adorjan at that point, but the host team faced a huge uphill climb and Ukraine focused more on defence than offence the rest of the way. Denyskin added his second of the game and third of the tournament late in the second period, and that was all for the scoring.
Romania spent the last 4:37 of the game on the power play, including 28 seconds of 5-on-3 time, but failed to break through as Diachenko and the Ukrainian penalty-killers shut the door.
“We’ll think about this game for about five or 10 minutes and then put it behind us and make sure tomorrow we start better,” said Gliga, referring to a huge upcoming game against Japan. “It’s a short turnaround, but if we do that, I think we’ll be okay.”
What’s at stake on Thursday
After three games each, Italy leads the group with seven points but just one point back are three teams with six: Great Britain, Poland and Ukraine. Depending which way the results go, Thursday’s first two games could either cause some separation or compact things even more.
At the other end of the standings, Romania and Japan have one point each. If either team loses that game in regulation time, they are relegated. If it’s decided in extra time, relegation will be decided on the last day.
Day 4 schedule (all times EET):
- Italy vs Great Britain, 12:30
- Poland vs Ukraine, 16:00
- Romania vs Japan, 19:30