Men's ice hockey Day 5 Round Up: Team USA top Group A after win over Germany, Finland edge thriller against Sweden

The United States men claimed top spot in Group A after a narrow 3-2 win over Germany, while Slovakia defeated Latvia for their first win in the Beijing 2022 men's ice hockey tournament on Sunday (13 February).

USA's Nathan Smith said, "It's huge. I think it proves that we can win these close games and, down the road, that's going to be big for us. It's just a big momentum shift for us."

Elsewhere, Finland toppled Sweden in a 4-3 overtime thriller but both teams went through to the quarter-finals automatically with Sweden progressing as best runners-up.

And Canada shut out China 5-0 with the teams meeting again in Tuesday's qualification playoffs.

Those four qualifications playoffs see Slovakia play Germany, Denmark meet Latvia, Czech Republic take on Switzerland, and China's rematch with Canada.

Slovakia earned their first win of the tournament with a commanding 5-2 victory over Latvia.

The first period ended at 1-1 after Slovakia's Martin Marincin (11:00) and Latvia's Ronalds Kenins (15:46) found the net.

Slovakia started to pull away in the second period thanks to Peter Cehlarik and Juraj Slafkovsky's fourth goal of the tournament.

Before today, Slafkovsky had been Slovakia's only goalscorer in Beijing.

Latvia's Miks Indrasis closed the gap to one early in the third period, but Peter Zuzin found the net at 49:21 for Slovakia and Tomas Jurco rounded off the scoring with a long range empty-netter inside the final second.

“It is good for the team and good for us that other guys have finally scored," said Jurco. “It is great that some other guys get on the board.”

Needing a win or to force overtime to win Group A, Team USA rose to the occasion.

They made it three wins out of three although they conceded the opening goal