Great Britain 5-4 Poland: Pete Russell’s side stay on course for World Championships promotion

Great Britain dramatically stayed on track for World Championship promotion yesterday as they needed a sudden death overtime winner to beat Poland 5-4.

A thrilling match at the Nottingham Arena came to the best possible end for GB when Ben Lake completed a brilliant move involving Liam Kirk and Nathanael Halbert in the power play with just over two minutes of the first extra time remaining.

It capped off a rollercoaster display in front of a packed crowd, with Poland pushing the hosts all the way in this second tier world tournament and ultimately being desperately unlucky to be on the wrong side of the result.

But for Great Britain it was a huge step towards their goal of returning to the elite of the ice hockey world on their first attempt with their second win of the weekend in front of their home crowd. Now they have a day off before taking on minnows Lithuania on Tuesday.

“We knew this was going to be a tough game,” said Belfast’s Lake afterwards. “We took the lead in the second period, but then conceded two goals and Poland never gave up.

“We just had to pull our socks off in extra time and get back to work and it was great to score the winning goal. Five games in seven days is hard work, so we rest tomorrow and come back strong on Tuesday.’

It quickly became clear that this would not be a repeat of Great Britain’s comfortable 4-0 win in their Saturday opener against Korea, when they rarely had to step out of second gear.

Poland were the better side for much of the first period, with their quick breaks in attack often overtaking the British defense and forcing goalkeeper Ben Bowns to come to the rescue.

But it was Great Britain that took the lead through their veteran captain Jonathan Phillips, who will retire at the end of this tournament to take up a new position as manager of an inclusion center at a Chesterfield school.

The 40-year-old defender nowadays spends much of his time on the fourth line of attack, but he was in the right position to catch a pass from Robert Lachowicz and aim the puck into the top of the Polish net.

All thoughts of Great Britain, staunch gold medal favorites in this second-tier World Cup group taking control, quickly vanished as Dominik Pas found his way past Bowns to equalize and delight the large contingent of Polish fans in the crowd .

Great Britain moved up a level in the second period to take the lead thanks to a moment of sheer class from Kirk who sent a reverse pass across the ice to Cade Neilson to find the back of the Polish net.

Pas had been by far the best Polish player but wiped his notebook when he took a vicious hit from behind at Ben O’Connor into the boards in front of the British team bench and was banned from the ice with a misconduct penalty.

It also gave Great Britain the luxury of a five-minute power play and Kirk went straight to his second goal of the tournament, following his opener against Korea with a well-crafted effort to put the hosts 3-1 ahead at the second break. to make.

That should have been a winning lead for Great Britain, but they ran into penalty trouble in the third period and with O’Connor sitting out two minutes for a hard hooking call, Poland fought their way back onto the field with a power play goal from Pawel. Zygmint.

Great Britain’s outstanding player Kirk hit the inside of the Polish post before Kamil Walega took the score with Poland’s third goal and his third point of the match.

It looked like Great Britain had taken three points for a win as Brett Perlini made it 4-3, again on the power play, after a Mike Hammond shot was somehow cleared.

But with just 47 seconds remaining, a rare error by Bowns, who was awarded the player of the match award, allowed Bartosz Fraszko to earn Poland, which turned into a point for an extra-time loss after his own goaltender drawn for an additional attacker.

Great Britain takes two points for victory in extra time, but remains on course for one of the two promotion places up for grabs in this tournament.

They will need to continue the winning habit when they take on Lithuania, Romania and then the other high-ranking team in this group in Italy if they want to guarantee a return to the elite they left last year.