Chad Smith and Josh Waller both struck hat-tricks as Great Britain Men’s Under 20’s thrashed Korea in the second game of their World Championships Division 2 Group A campaign.
It was the perfect way to bounce back after Sunday’s 6-4 loss to Lithuania and Slava Koulikov’s side were on top form as they delivered a first class performance in Tallinn.
They took control early on with two goals in the first five minutes as Waller opened the scoring with a top shelf finish from Liam Kirk.
Then Mac Howlett set up Smith who scored with a low backhanded effort and GB were looking relatively comfortable early on.
Another effort, this time from Howlett hit the post, with Smith tucking away the rebound to open up a three goal lead.
Korea made a netminder change at 15 minutes to try and stem the flow of goals when Tae Kyung Kim replaced Sangwon Bae.
But Koulikov’s men blitzed their opponents with five goals in 10 minutes in the second period to turn was going to be a comfortable victory into a shellacking.
Morgan Clarke-Pizzo scored from close range at 24 minutes followed by good individual work from Jordan Buesa to add a fifth a couple of minutes later on the powerplay.
Waller picked up his second of the game at the half houe with Tyler Cooper scoring on the backhand to add a seventh, then Kieran Brown smashed one into the net from the right circle and GB really were running riot.
Smith completed his hat-trick early in the third to make it 9-0 in the first couple of minutes of the third period.
Korea got their consolation goal through Beomjun Park, but the GB goals kept on flowing as Waller completed his hat-trick from a Brown pass.
Then Brown himself took the scoreline into double figures when he scored 16 seconds later later
Neilson then fed Mason Biddulph at the backdoor with seven minutes to go before Brown set up Kirk for his first goal of the tournament to seal an impressive victory.
ELSEWHERE
Romania took all three points in the day’s opening game as they edged past Spain 3-2 to make it two wins from two.
Aron Sarmiento and Pablo Zaballas put the Spaniards two up in the opening 11 minutes, but Romania hit back through Andrei Filip at the end of the first.
Further strikes from Zsolt Reszegh in the second period and Eduard Casaneanu’s winner in the third completed the comeback and Romania were celebrating.
Hosts Estonia joined them at the top of the group as they needed penalty shots to overcome Lithuania in the final game of the day, winning 2-1 following the shootout.
Andre Linde had the Estonians in front in the second period, but was cancelled out by Vainius Jankauskas in the final period to take the game to overtime.
Morten Arantez Jurgens and Artemi Aleksandrov were both successful in the shootout to take the points, putting them on five, the same as Romania after two games.
