Lions score 3rd consecutive victory beating Austria 3-1

Defending champion Finland scored third consecutive victory in the Ice Hockey World Championship 2023 beating Austria by three goals to one at Nokia Arena in Tampere on Saturday afternoon.

Although the Lions started to score at the second minute of the match, the tough competition with the underdog Austria forced them to be satisfied with a victory of small margin.

Kasperi Kapanen sent puck to the net beating Austria´s goalkeeper David Madlener and took lead for the Finns at the very beginning of the match but failed to uphold the leading position for long as Dominic Zwerger scored at the fifth minute for Austria to level the score.

Within a span of less than three minutes Antti Suomela took the Finland ahead again resulting end of the first period 2-1.

From the beginning of the second period both the teams tried to create pressure on each other but none of them was successful to score any goal in the second period.

The Lions became very active at the third period to widen the gap while Austria tried to level the score but the situation remained unchanged until Ahti Oksanen scored just less than two minutes before the end resulting 3-1 victory for the Finland.

Earlier in two previous matches, Finland beat Hungary and France by 7-1 and 5-3 goals respectively.

Before that the Lions lost to USA by 1-4 and Sweden by 1-2 on tiebreaker while won against Germany by 4-3.

Finland will play their last group match with Denmark on Tuesday.