Russia vs. Switzerland
How to watch
Puck drop: 4:00 PM EST / 1:00 PM PST
In Canada: TSN1, TSN3, TSN4, TSN5 (English,) RDS (French)
In the United States: NHL Network
Live stream: TSN Direct, RDS Direct
Just a few hours separate leaving the ice after defeat in the semifinal and puck drop for the Bronze Medal Game. It’s always difficult to regroup from the loss on Friday and play the third-place game on Saturday while your previous opponent prepares to battle for gold.
The Russians had swept their way through the preliminary round, defeating Canada to take top spot in Group A, and handily defeating Slovakia in the quarter-finals. They were unable to find the offence needed to get the win versus the USA, falling 2-1 in a frustrating game that they were largely in control of.
There are a few reasons why Switzerland may be the more interested in today’s game. They were out of their semifinal versus Finland from early on in the first last night, and could prepare themselves for a bronze-medal fight, while the Russians were desperately trying to salvage their semifinal right until the end.
Switzerland’s biggest reason to be excited about the possibility for bronze is that they’ve only won one medal at the World Juniors in their history: a bronze in 1998. For the first time in over 20 years, they have a chance to add another one. Even finishing among the final four nations is a feat for a program that last achieved that in 2010. For them, a bronze medal was a lofty goal to reach in the tournament, and now they have their chance to take it.
They’ll still be the inferior team on paper, and that much was apparent in a preliminary-round game in which they saw a 3-1 lead over the Russians turn into an 7-4 loss. It’s very possible the Swiss will be able to get the jump on their opponent again today, but they’ll have to play right to final whistle to prevent such a result again.
Team Russia projected lineup
Forwards
| Left Wing | Centre | Right Wing |
|---|---|---|
| #9 Artyom Galimov | #23 Ivan Muranov | #29 Kirill Slepets |
| #14 Vitali Kravtsov | #24 Klim Kostin | #28 Grigori Denisenko |
| #10 Stepan Starkov | #15 Nikolai Kovalenko | #16 Pavel Shen |
| #18 Nikita Shashkov | #12 Kirill Marchenko | #17 Ivan Morozov |
| #11 Vasili Podkolzin |
Defencemen
| Left Defence | Right Defence |
|---|---|
| #2 Danila Zhuravlyov | #6 Ilya Morozov |
| #26 Alexander Romanov | #5 Dmitri Samorukov |
| #8 Saveli Olshansky | #4 Alexander Alexeyev |
| #27 Mark Rubinchik |
Goaltenders
| Goaltenders |
|---|
| #20 Pyotr Kochetkov |
| #30 Daniil Tarasov |
Team Switzerland projected lineup
Forwards
| Left Wing | Centre | Right Wing |
|---|---|---|
| #22 Nando Eggenberger | #23 Philipp Kurashev | #9 Nicolas Müller |
| #18 Valentin Nussbaumer | #13 Justin Sigrist | #10 Yannick Brüschweiler |
| #17 Lucas Wyss | #14 Sandro Schmid | #15 Matthew Verboon |
| #6 Marco Lehmann | #20 Ramon Tanner | #11 Sven Leuenberger |
| #12 Jeremi Gerber |
Defencemen
| Left Defence | Right Defence |
|---|---|
| #4 Simon le Coultre | #16 Nico Gross |
| #21 Tim Berni | #26 David Aebischer |
| #8 Janis Jérôme Moser | #7 Gianluca Burger |
| #19 Davyd Barandun |
Goaltenders
| Goaltenders |
|---|
| #30 Luca Hollentstein |
| #29 Akira Schmid |
