Ryan O’Reilly, Justus Annunen Among Predators to Shine in Monday’s IIHF World Championship Game
The fourth day of the IIHF World Championship took place Monday with four games, three of which included players from the Nashville Predators.
Of the six Nashville players that are rostered on IIHF teams, four of them saw action.
To begin the day, Ryan O’Reilly and Team Canada took on Team Denmark and won 5-1. O’Reilly once again showed up for his country as he helped Canada by scoring one of the goals for the Canadians in his 16 minutes and four seconds of time on the ice.
Additionally, Canada outscored Denmark by two goals in the time that O’Reilly was in the game. Predators goalie prospect Jack Ivankovic did not play in the game. It was the third straight game that he did not make an appearance.
In the game between Team USA and Team Finland, two Nashville guys played against each other. At the end of the day, it was Finnish goalie Justus Annunen that got the better of the Americans as Finland beat the U.S 6-2.
Annunen put on a great performance in goal on Monday. Despite the United States having 32 shots on goal, Annunen came up big with 30 saves for a save percentage of 93.75%. It was the second game during the IIHF World Championship that Annunen has helped Finland win.
Team USA outshot Team FInland 32-28 despite the loss.
On the United States side, Predators defenseman Ryan Ufko saw 16 minutes and 30 seconds of ice time during the game. Ufko assisted on one of the two United States goals for his sole point of the game. While he did not score, Ufko had two shots on goal, but finished -1 in the +/-.
Predators prospect Ryker Lee did not see any game action against Finland Monday.
In the late slate of games was Predators star Roman Josi and Team Switzerland taking on Team Germany.
Switzerland beat Germany with ease, winning by a score of 6-1. In the game, Josi was one of the offensive contributors as he scored one goal and assisted on two more Switzerland goals for a total of three points on the day.
With the performance, Josi helped Switzerland reach 3-0 in the IIHF games as the Swiss are tied with Team Canada for first place in Group A.
The next time there will be Predators players in action in the IIHF World Championship is Wednesday. Josi and Switzerland take on Team Austria while Ufko, Lee and the rest of Team USA take on Team Germany.
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Graham Baakko is a lead writer for both Nashville Predators On SI and Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham graduated from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as an intern for GamecockCentral.