Latvia, the early surprise team of the IIHF World Junior Championship, had a quick turnaround to face the USA after defeating Canada 3-2 Friday night in a shootout in Ottawa. The game marked Latvia’s first-ever win against the Canadians. The well-rested Americans wore down the Latvians Saturday afternoon, though, winning 5-1.

Head Coach David Carle is surrounded by familiar DU program faces in Ottawa. (Denver Twitter)

Two minutes into the first period, the USA scored a goal for the early lead as Danny Nelson (Notre Dame) scored with help from Cole Eiserman and Colin Ralph. Latvia played the US even-up the rest of the way as the score remained unchanged at the break.

The US scored following a faceoff on the power play five minutes into the second period. James Hagens sent a pass to the breaking captain Ryan Leonard (Boston College) to the right of goaltender Linards Feldbergs and tapped the pass into the cage, 2-0.

DU’s Zeev Buium got his first point of the tournament as Hagens fed Zeev to the left of goaltender Feldbergs, 3-0. The US went on a 5-on-3 power play and Nelson buried a flying backhand goal, his second of the game, for a 4-0 lead with five seconds left. It could have been a worse period for Latvia but Feldbergs made several spectacular saves in the waning two minutes for Latvia.

Latvia finally found a goal at 48:22 of the third period when Davids Livsics scored, 4-1. Seven minutes later, the US scored their fifth goal on a 2-on-1 break when Teddy Stiga fed a streaking Max Plante (Minnesota Duluth) who roofed the puck, 5-1.

The USA outshot Latvia 40-27 but the Latvians did miss several Grade-A chances to score goals. The road gets tougher for the US with games against Finland on Sunday the 29th and Canada on Tuesday the 31st.