World Cham­pi­onship 2025: Third win! Austria beat Slovenia in a shootout – quarter-final hopes remain alive

Austria started the game against Slovenia with David Kickert in goal. Florian Vorauer was in the line-up as backup. After just a few seconds, Marco Kasper had the lead on his stick for the Red-White-Red, but Slovenia’s netminder Lukáš Horák made a good save.

Austria were dominant and created further chances, but a shot from Bernd Wolf from a good position was placed too centrally. During an extended spell shorthanded, with two consecutive penalties, Austria conceded the 0:1: Blaž Gregorc fired the puck in and Paul Stapelfeldt deflected the shot (at 10).

The Slovenians were now able to make the game more open and also had chances, but Austria equalised: on a lightning-fast counter-attack, Peter Schneider set up Dominic Zwerger perfectly, and he scored the 1:1 from close range (at 14). On the first power play, Marco Kasper connected on the volley, but Horák made a fortunate save. Shortly before the end of the period, a shot from Lukas Kainz grazed the crossbar, once again missing the lead by just a few centimetres.

Peter Schneider had the first clear-cut chance of the second period after a fine pass from Dominic Zwerger, but Slovenia’s goalkeeper Horák came to the rescue again. A high stick by Brian Lebler led to a tricky spell with a four-minute power play for Slovenia. Austria produced strong penalty killing, and towards the end of the penalty, David Kickert made a superb glove save.

Shortly afterwards, Austria took another penalty, with Peter Schneider also sent off for high-sticking. At the other end, a Slovenian player also had to go to the penalty box. Back at five-on-five, the Austrians remained dominant and were the better team. Peter Schneider had the 2:1 on his stick after a pass from Thimo Nickl, but was once again denied by Horák. Austria then had a power play and applied plenty of pressure, but the puck would not cross the line.

The ÖEHV selection were also clearly dominant at the start of the third period, with Vinzenz Rohrer missing a great chance to take the lead from close range. Austria had another power-play opportunity, with Marco Kasper unlucky to hit the post and Dominic Zwerger firing a good shot. At five-on-five, Lukas Haudum passed to Brian Lebler, who deflected the puck in for a thoroughly deserved 2:1 lead (at 51).

Slovenia hit back: Robert Sabolič scored the 2:2 equaliser with a penalty against Austria pending (at 54). Neither team could find another goal, and the game went to overtime, where Thomas Raffl missed a great chance to win it after a breakaway. Slovenia also had opportunities to claim the second point, but David Kickert made a crucial last-ditch save.

Lukas Haudum had victory on his stick just seconds before the end of overtime, but it remained 2:2 and the game had to be decided in a shootout. Lukas Haudum, Dominic Zwerger and Benjamin Baumgartner scored there. David Kickert stopped every Slovenian attempt. Austria had achieved their objective of a third win at the World Championship.

Head Coach Roger Bader was satisfied with his team, but lamented the many missed scoring chances in regulation time: "It was no surprise that it would be a hard-fought game, we knew that. The Slovenians knew that their World Championship really only starts today with the game against us and tomorrow’s game against France. Those are the two games in which they want to secure their place in the top division, so they fought. However, we have to say that we certainly deserved the win because we had so many scoring chances. We should have won the game after 60 minutes; we had two shots off the post and countless Grade-A chances. So I’m happy that we got the win, but given the many scoring chances, we deserved to get it earlier!"

Bader also looked ahead to Tuesday’s game against Latvia: "We take the confidence from this game that we have also achieved the second objective with the third win – that is new as well. Now, of course, we will try to throw everything at Latvia. We have always said that we want to have a so-called plus game against Latvia, one that can achieve more than the first two objectives of ‘staying in the top division’ and ‘three wins’; that is possible. We can reach ten points with a win against Latvia and then we will have to see a little what the others do. But perhaps we will be lucky. Now it is about recovering – Recover and Refocus – the same motto, so that we can play a great game against Latvia on Tuesday!"

Goalkeeper David Kickert saw a difficult game against Slovenia: "It was brutal, we spent most of the time in their zone and then they come with counter-attacking chances. It is one of the most difficult types of game you can play. And the fact that it was so close until the end makes it even more difficult. We did not play our game today, we did not skate and we did not make any hits. The positive thing is that the chances of reaching the quarter-finals are still there, and we gladly take the two points!"

Also Benjamin Baumgartner voiced self-criticism: "That was our worst game so far; we should have decided it much earlier. We dropped a point rather than gained one, but we now have to look ahead. The Slovenians shut things down at the back, and we took too many penalties in the second period, which also disrupted our rhythm a little. We had such good chances; we lacked a little efficiency!"

Tuesday's game against Latvia is for a place in the quarter-finals

Following a day of rest, the big showdown for a place in the quarter-finals against Latvia takes place on Tuesday at 12:20 at the Avicii Arena, live on ORF 1. Latvia beat Slovakia 5:1 and sit fourth on nine points, while Austria are fifth on seven points. This means Austria need a win after 60 minutes on Tuesday to qualify for the quarter-finals. 

2025 IIHF ICE HOCKEY WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

9 - 25 May 2025, Stockholm, Sweden & Herning, Denmark

Slovenia vs. Austria 2:3 after shootout (1:1,0:0,1:1,0:0,0:1)
Sun, 18 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 16:20, 3.457
Slovenia scorers: Blaž Gregorc (10th/PP1), Robert Sabolič (54th)
Austria scorers: Dominic Zwerger (14th), Brian Lebler (51th) – Lukas Haudum, Dominic Zwerger and Benjamin Baumgartner scored in the shootout.

Austria lined up with:

Goaltenders: 30 Kickert David; 33 Vorauer Florian (backup)
Line 1: 92 Unterweger Clemens - 32 Wolf Bernd; 16 Zwerger Dominic - 96 Kasper Marco - 3 Peter Schneider
Line 2: 91 Heinrich Dominique - 78 Nickl Thimo; 5 Raffl Thomas - 24 Baumgartner Benjamin - 52 Huber Paul
Line 3: 45 Biber Gregor - 12 Maier David; 7 Lebler Brian - 21 Haudum Lukas - 19 Rohrer Vinzenz
Line 4: 18 Stapelfeldt Paul - 4 Schnetzer Ramon; 95 Kainz Lukas - 26 Achermann Oliver - 48 Thaler Lucas

Next game:

Latvia vs. Austria
Tue, 20 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 12:20, live ORF 1

Already played:

Austria vs. France 5:2 (3:0,0:0,2:2)
Fri, 16 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 16:20, 4.873
Austria goalscorers: Marco Kasper (1', 58'/EN), Vinzenz Rohrer (8'), Ramon Schnetzer (16'), Peter Schneider (60'/EN)
France goalscorers: Jordann Perret (51'/PP1), Pierre-Édouard Bellemare (59'/PP1)

Canada vs. Austria 5:1 (0:1,2:0,3:0)
Thu, 15 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 20:20, 5.259
Canada goalscorers: Nathan MacKinnon (22'/PP1, 34'), Travis Konecny (49'), Will Cuylle (52'), Sidney Crosby (59')
Austria goalscorer: Vinzenz Rohrer (12') 

Austria vs. Slovakia 3:2 after a shootout (2:0,0:1,0:1,0:0,1:0)
Mon, 12 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 16:20, 4.375
Austria goalscorers: Peter Schneider (8'), Marco Kasper (12') - Lukas Haudum and Peter Schneider scored in the shootout.
Slovakia goalscorers: Samuel Honzek (27'), Matúš Sukeľ (51') - Martin Chromiak scored in the shootout.

Sweden vs. Austria 4:2 (0:0,1:1,3:1)
Sat, 10 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 16:20, 12.530
Sweden goalscorers: Mika Zibanejad (34'/PP1, 58'), Jonas Brodin (58'), Alexander Wennberg (59'/EN)
Austria goalscorers: Benjamin Baumgartner (26'), Marco Kasper (53') 

Austria vs. Finland 1:2 (1:2,0:0,0:0)
Fri, 09 May 2025, Avicii Arena, 16:20, 6.822
Austria goalscorer: Bernd Wolf (14')
Finland goalscorers: Patrik Puistola (5'), Juuso Pärssinen (8')

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