Estonia Wins Evening Thriller in Arena Sparta – 02.12.2018

The Estonians were down by two but they managed to come back and win 4–3 over Poland to get their second victory in the tournament.

Strong defensive play of both teams was the determining element of the first period. Estonia as well as Poland made up some good chances but nearly all of the shots were caught by the goalies. With just one exception when Lukasz Chlebda scored in the 7th minute of the game on a rebound. Poland took the 1–0 lead and just a few minutes later they even killed a short Estonian five-on-three power play.

With just fifteen seconds into the second period, the Poles doubled their lead thanks to a power-play goal. The tough battle continued and the Estonians started scoring as well. First, two and a half minutes after the Polish goal, they cut the lead in half and then late in the second period they equalized to make it 2–2 after forty minutes.

In the third period, Lukasz Chlebda completed a hat-trick, sent Poland back into the lead and set the story – the Estonians had to score a goal to hope for at least a point from this match. But they did even more than that. Halfway through the third they leveled the score again and a few minutes later Estonia took the lead for the first time. The final Polish pressure culminated in the last two minutes as they played a power-play and pulled their goalie, but Estonia resisted and won 4–3.