Norway ended its 2018 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship run with a much needed
3-0 win over Korea to avoid relegation. Both teams came into today's game needing a win to avoid being bumped out of the top group. Korea will be relegated to the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A for 2019
one year after earning promotion for the first time in history.

Tobias Lindstrom's first period goal held up as the game winner.

"We hoped to do a little better," said Ken Andre Olimb. "We wanted to battle for the quarter-finals and not battling for survival. We had two OT's in our first games and could have gotten more points, but the main thing was to win and stay up."

The World Championship caps an historic year for Korean hockey, starting with hosting the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang and then inclusion in this tournament. While Korea may have been overmatched, they settled down in their last two games of the tournament putting together efforts that, while not leading to a win, were solid.

"This tournament was more challenging than the Olympics," said Bryan William Young. "The Olympics were pretty special, being in South Korea, but both tournaments were great experiences for the guys and I think they'll take that going forward."

Korea almost jumped out to an early lead today. Forty seconds into the game Mathis Olimb was called for a penalty. Ten seconds into the man advantage, Eric
Regan took a shot on net that squeezed between Lars Haugen's pads and dribbled into the net as he moved. Haugen had to fend off Woosang Park in his crease who
was trying to put some pressure in front.

Norway challenged the goal hoping to get a goaltender interference call. It was
a bold move by Norwegian head coach Petter Thoresen in having the referees go upstairs but it paid off. After several minutes where the play was reviewed, it
was ruled no goal with the faceoff coming outside the Norway zone.

Over the first two minutes, Korea managed to get four shots on goal. After a 13-1 drubbing by the United States, Korea played much better, limiting chances against while showing some offensive spark in stretches.

Unfortunately, Korea's undoing would again come with an inefficient line change
that led to a too many men on the ice penalty. At 13:25 Tobias Lindstrom scored
on a one timer while Brock Radunske was serving the penalty. Lindstrom forcefully rifled the puck on net off a Mathis Olimb pass.

Lindstrom has been actively involved in the offence. With two assists last night against Team USA and today's goal, Lindstrom has three points in his last
two games.

The game settled into a back and forth affair as both teams surrendered limited
chances. There were very few penalties called. In fact, after the planet leading to Norway's scoring in the first period, only two minors, both against Korea, were called.

Heading into the third period the game was still a very manageable 1-0 for Norway and Korea would have twenty minutes to try and muster significant offence to level the game. But that was not to be as Norway added a pair of goals in the final period that sealed the win.

Anders Bastiansen swooped in around the Korean net sending a pass through the legs of the defenceman in front finding the blade of Thomas Valkvae Olsen's stick. Valkvae Olsen had a wide open net and plenty of time to deposit it in at
6:55. For Olsen it was his second goal of the tournament.

As Korea's discipline started to fade away, Norway capitalized with a power play goal. It also ensured that time would be spent in the Korean zone defending against another power play rather than pressing to get on the scoreboard. Inside the last ten minutes of the game, Korea was called for three
minors.

When Bryan William Young was serving a delay of game penalty, Norway's power play went to work and scored. Captain Jonas Holos, who has been quiet in the tournament, scored to put his team up 3-0 and closing out scoring.

"Of course, we wanted to do better, but we weren't able to, so after that the main focus was to stay in the top division, so now we can go to Slovakia and play with the big guys again," Daniel Sorvik said of the end result.

JOHN SANFUL

http://https://www.new-iihf.com/en/events/2018/wm/news/2972/kor-nor
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