The Latvian men's ice hockey team, preparing for the World Championship, will play the second of two friendly matches against Austria today in Riga, writes LETA.
The match at the Xiaomi Arena will start at 19:30, and the live broadcast will be shown on TV6.
In the first game on Wednesday, Latvia lost with a score of 3:4.
For the Latvian national team, goals were scored by Karlis Ozolins, Gleb Prokhorenkov, and Denis Smirnov. Renars Krastenbergs was recognized as the best player among the hosts.
Marek Mitens saved 10 out of 14 shots, while Latvian hockey players made 26 shots on the opponent's goal.
In the ninth minute of the match, Maximilian Reberni was able to score against Mitens, and in the 17th second of the second period, Benjamin Nissner made the score 2:0. Eight minutes later, Luka Erne scored the third goal against Latvia. In the episode with the third goal, the puck bounced off the boards directly to Erne, who took advantage of the situation when the hosts' goal was empty.
Starting from the middle of the match, over the next six minutes and ten seconds, the Latvians managed to equalize the score thanks to goals from Ozolins, Prokhorenkov, and Smirnov. However, two minutes before the break, the guests took the lead again — Lukas Taler scored.
After the matches against Austria, the Latvian national team will meet the national teams of Denmark and Finland in Lahti on April 22 and 23. Meanwhile, on May 2 and 3, the team led by Harijs Vitolins will play away against the Slovak national team.
The national team will conclude the preparatory stage with matches on May 6 and 7, when they will host the Norwegian national team.
The Ice Hockey World Championship will take place from May 15 to 31 in Zurich and Fribourg, Switzerland.
