For its entry into the World Hockey Championships organized by Finland and Latvia, France dominated Austria after the suspense in the preliminary round – for the fourth time after 2013, 2015 and 2018.
Despite a numerical inferiority to manage in the first minutes, the Blues were very dangerous, initially without managing to concretize. At the end of the first period, they took advantage of a double fault from Austria, and a minute at 5 against 3 to open the scoring thanks to Tim Bozon.
Coming back from the break, the Blues were solid in defense to repel the ever-increasing Austrian offensives. Despite two new minutes in numerical superiority at the end of the second half, the French did not manage to take shelter.
Treille releases the Blues
Inside the Nokia Arena in Tampere (Finland), the France team suffered late in the game. In the last third, the penalty against Alexandre Texier (43′) condemned the Blues to long minutes in numerical inferiority and Thomas Raffl (46′) managed to bring Austria back up. At the end of the match, the France team failed to take advantage of a numerical superiority of 5 against 3 to take the advantage. In the first minutes of extra time, Sacha Treille released the Blues, who managed to secure the essentials.
With this victory beyond regulation time, the French team scores 2 points and is in 3rd place in group A, one point behind Sweden and the United States, pending Denmark’s entry into the running against Hungary this Saturday afternoon.
The Blues will face Denmark on Sunday at 3:20 p.m.