Dec. 29, 2013
Malmo, Sweden – Notre Dame freshman center Vince Hinostroza (Bartlett, Ill.) scored two goals and added two assists in helping lead his USA team to an 8-0 win over Germany on Sunday morning in preliminary round action at the 2014 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship.
Seven different U.S. players scored in the game while the U.S. scored six power-play goals in the victory that gives them a 3-0 record in Group A play in the round-robin tournament. The United States will close out Group A play on Dec. 31 when they face Canada at 11:30 a.m. (ET) at Malmo Isstadion.
The United States was 6-for-10 on the power play in the game and had a 53-15 shot advantage for the game, including a 22-4 advantage in the second period when Germany was whistled for 33 minutes in penalties.
While the U.S. excelled on the power play, their penalty-killing unit stood out early in the game as Team USA was forced to kill a five-on-three for 1:23 just over three minutes into the game. Irish left wing Thomas DiPauli (So., Woodridge, Ill.) was part of the three-man unit that killed that penalty before the U.S. could get on the scoreboard.
Minnesota’s Hudson Fasching started the scoring at 8:09 of the first with an even-strength goal to make it 1-0. Hinostroza then set up Wisconsin’s Nic Kerdiles at 11:06 for the first U.S. power-play goal of the game for his first point of the night and a 2-0 lead.
The penalties started just 10 seconds into the second period when Germany’s top player Leon Draisaitl received a major for hitting from behind and a game misconduct on Michigan’s Andrew Copp. Less than two minutes later, Germany’s Sven Ziegler was called for hooking and the U.S. had a five-on-three for a full two minutes and took advantage.
Denver defenseman Will Butcher hammered a shot past goaltender Patrick Klein from the right circle at 2:21 to make it 3-0.
Hinostroza got his first goal of the game at 3:37 when he one-timed a shot from the left face-off dot past Klein for his second goal of the tournament and a 4-0 U.S. lead.
“The team was going good today,” said Hinostroza following the game.
“We were making a lot of plays. All of our lines were playing well and I got some nice set ups that I was able to take advantage of.”
Miami’s Riley Barber made it a 5-0 game when he scored the fourth power-power play goal of the game at 11:46 and Boston University’s Matt Grzelcyk drilled a blast from between the circles on another five-on-three at 13:57 for a 6-0 lead. Hinostroza picked up his second assist of the game on the Grzelcyk goal.
In the third period, Kevin Reich took over in goal for Germany and would give up the final two goals of the game. Boston College defenseman Steve Santini deflected a Grzelcyk blast past Reich at 10:04 to make it 7-0 and Hinostroza closed the scoring with an even-strength goal at 13:46 to close out the scoring at 8-0 for the United States.
Anthony Stolarz, who plays for the OHL’s London Knights, made his first start in goal for the United States and stopped all 15 shots he faced in getting the shutout. Klein faced 35 shots in 40 minutes for Germany and made 29 saves while Reich stopped 16-of-18 shots in his 20 minutes of play.
Besides Hinostroza’s four-point game, four other U.S. team members had multi-point games. Grzelcyk had three points on a goal and two assists while Barber and Kerdiles had a goal and an assist and Copp checked in with a pair of assists.
In three tournament games, Hinostroza has three goals and two assists while DiPauli has two assists.
DiPauli and Hinostroza are the 17th and 18th Notre Dame players to play in the IIHF World Junior Championships. This marks the third consecutive year that the Irish have had at least one player on the team. Mario Lucia (So., Plymouth, Minn.) was a member of the gold-medal winning USA team last year in Ufa, Russia and seniors Stephen Johns (Wampum, Pa.) and T.J. Tynan (Orland Park, Ill.) played on the 2011-12 team that played in Calgary, Alta.
Tuesday’s game against Canada can be seen live on the NHL Network and it will be streamed live on NHL.com.