Søgaard pulled: Denmark shut out again, out of main group

By Medicine Hat News on January 5, 2019.

Medicine Hat News

Medicine Hat Tigers goaltender Mads Søgaard was forced to close the book on his IIHF World Junior Championship run early.

The 18-year-old Danish netminder was beaten by the first two shots he faced in Friday’s pivotal relegation game against Kazakhstan, prompting an early exit from both the game and the tournament. William Rorth entered in relief, stopping 12 pucks to hold his team in the contest, but Denmark was ultimately shut out in a 4-0 loss and will be sent to the Division 1-A tournament next year as a result.

Sayan Daniyar put Kazakhstan on the board 35 seconds into the contest after picking up a puck in the slot, deking around Søgaard and tucking away his second goal of the tournament.

Things got even more difficult four minutes later when Davyd Makutskiy jumped on a loose puck in front of Søgaard and chipped it over his shoulder to spell an end to the Tabby netminder’s tournament.

The Danes kept up the pressure and managed to outshoot Kazakhstan 25-16, but they were unable to sneak a puck past Demid Yeryemenev, who made 25 saves to lock up the shutout.

Artur Gatiyatov potted a pair of empty netters in the final two minutes to seal Denmark’s fate.

Denmark will be replaced by Germany at next year’s IIHF World Junior Championship. The Danes failed to score in all but one of their six tournament games.

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