The IIHF World Championships rolled on this week with the Lightning organization well represented at this year’s tournament. While Team USA’s games are being shown on NBCSN regularly, LightningShout wants to keep you up to date on how all of the Bolts are doing in Europe. (Photos/Susan Ferlita)
Belarus: The host country is sitting in second place in Group B with a 3-2 record.
Tampa defensive prospect Dmitry Korobov has been seeing increased ice time, including 20:34 in Thursday’s loss to Finland. Saturday’s match against Germany resulted in a 5-2 victory. Belarus will face Latvia on Monday.
Latvia: Team Latvia is right behind Belarus in the Group B’s standings. They defeated Kazakhstan 5-4 on Tuesday and went on to face Team USA on Thursday with Kristers Gudlevskis between the pipes. It ended up being a highly competitive and energetic game, but the Latvians came away with the 6-5 upset win. Kristers got the nod again in Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the dominant Russian squad. Latvia will meet Belarus for their next game on Monday.
Russia: Team Russia sits not only atop Group B with 15 points, but have the most points of any other team in the tournament so far. They have been so good that 
they remain undefeated after five games. They thumped Kazakhstan 7-2 on Wednesday. They defeated Latvia 4-1 on Saturday. Sergei Bobrovsky has been seeing the bulk of time in net. Andrei Vasilevskiy has yet to see another start, but may get a chance in today’s game against Germany.
Slovakia: The Slovaks sit in sixth place in Group A with 
seven points. They defeated Norway on Wednesday 5-2, fell to Sweden 3-1 on Friday and defeated Italy 4-1 on Saturday. Lightning prospect Richard Panik remains pointless so far but has been seeing between 12 to 19 minutes of ice time per game. Slovakia’s next game will be against Denmark on Tuesday.
United States: The tournament has been far from easy for Team USA as they sit at fifth place in Group B with eight points. They endured a
6-5 loss against Latvia on Thursday. Lightning forward Tyler Johnson scored the Americans’ third goal on the power play in the second period. The US bounced back with a 4-3 win over Kazakhstan on Friday. Johnson was held scoreless but won 45% of his face offs. Team USA is set to meet Finland today.
Follow me on Twitter @alexis_b82 and please “like” LightningShout on Facebook. You can email us at [email protected].
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
