Austria off to world junior relegation round after Germany wins 4-2

Despite scoring their first goal of the tournament, Austria will head to the relegation round after falling 4-2 to Germany on Friday.

The win was Germany’s first of the tournament, giving them three points. Regardless of the result, they’ll finish fourth as Canada (six points) has the tiebreaker in head-to-head action.

Austria will begin a three-game relegation round series with Latvia on Monday, with the team that wins two of them remaining in the top tournament for 2024. The loser will be relegated to Division IA and replaced by Norway.

The Germans scored first, with Julian Lutz finding Philipp Krening near the net for the 1-0 goal. The Germans then doubled it with harmless-looking wrister from the point at 21:34, with Leon van der Linde beating Michael Sicher with a shot over the blocker. Sicher’s night ended five minutes later after Nikolaus Heigl found his brother Thomas in front, giving Germany the 3-0 lead.

Austria started to play better hockey after that, and on the man advantage at 29:24, they finally had something to celebrate. Ian Scherzer, a 2023 NHL Draft prospect that scored Austria’s last goal in August, sent a nice wrist shot off of a pass from Vinzenz Rohrer to make it 3-1.

That excitement was short-lived, though. At 36:38, Kechter scored his from a Krening feed and made it 4-1, this time on new Austrian netminder Thomas Pfarrmaier. Jonas Dobnig, who missed the net on a penalty shot in the second period, scored to make it 4-2, but it wasn’t enough to help spark the comeback effort.