Two Up: Checking in on Czechia in the Group Stage

After last year’s historic silver medal, the question for Czechia was whether they would be able to maintain their previous level of play. Several of their top scorers and players had aged out of the tournament, including standouts Adéla Šapovalivová and Tereza Plosová and goaltender Aneta Šenková. Coming into this tournament as the top seed in Group B, they had a lot to prove.

Through two games, questions remain, and a rematch of the 2024 semifinal that sent Czechia to the gold medal game looms tomorrow.

Game 1 vs Switzerland

Czechia’s first game of the tournament started out slow, but once the team woke up, they were playing the style of play we’ve come to expect from Czechia: great ice awareness, constantly moving feet, good use of short passes on cycles and rushes. They had a good net-front presence, though they may have relied too much on the tactic of trying to smack in rebounds. 

The game remained scoreless until the third, when Swiss defender Sonja Inkamp took a shot from a distance that deflected under Daniela Nováková’s glove. Late in the game and down a goal, Czechia seemed to default to the slap-and-smack technique, abandoning their earlier cycles and passing. In the end, Viktorie Jílková‘s tying goal was a lucky bounce, an awkward deflection that went off a body in front of the net and past Switzerland’s Amaya Iseli.

The overtime goal came as a result of the strong forecheck that Czechia had exhibited all game. Adéla Pánková dogged the Swiss defender in her own zone as she attempted to find a clean pass up the ice, forcing her to turn around. Pánková was able to come out of the battle with the puck and passed to Julie Jebousková, who had enough time and space to pick her spot just below the crossbar.

Czechia took too many penalties in this game; Switzerland’s goal came immediately after a power play expired. They outshot the Swiss, but a lot of their shots were from the outside or busy net front scrambles which they did not convert on. The chances they allowed in the other direction were much more dangerous, including multiple breakaways. The Czech power play didn’t score a goal, but had good looks. 

Nováková was Czechia’s player of the game, and rightfully so. Without her great positioning on Switzerland’s several breakaways, this game could easily have been lost in regulation.

Game 2 vs Slovakia

Czechia knew what they had to work on in this game, and they did clean up the loose passing that led to so many breakaways against Switzerland… after allowing one in the first minute of the game.

Slovakia’s star Nela Lopušanová broke the ice three minutes into the first with a beautiful breakaway that evaded Daniela Nováková. Czechia’s Barbora Prošková, who played defense in the first game, did everything short of fouling to shake Lopušanová. Linda Vocetková evened the score and then took Czechia ahead with two goals in the first period.

In the first, Slovakia was forechecking hard, trying to disrupt Czechia’s play and cause turnovers, with mixed success. Vocetková’s go-ahead goal lit a fire under Czechia and they had a great shift immediately afterwards. The end of the period killed the momentum.

In the second period, Slovakia’s pace, perseverance, and smart play dragged the Czech skaters out of their play style. They shot from afar on the rush rather than trust their passing, which Slovakia was constantly disrupting. Slovakia also did a great job of negating the Czech player in front of the net, particularly on their extended power plays.

By the midway point of the game, Lopušanová tucked away two more goals, the latter on a play where a Czech player fell and knocked the net off just before the puck crossed the line. I believe the officials made the right call in awarding Lopušanová the goal, as her wrap-around swipe was already in progress as the net came off the pegs.

After a period of fighting Slovakia's stifling pressure, Magdaléna Felcmanová broke through for Czechia with two minutes until intermission. Once again, the goal energized Czechia, and Prošková scored her first of the tournament a minute later.

The third period showed off Czechia’s depth and resilience. Slovakia was unable to sustain the forechecking pressure they’d enforced in the first two periods, and the Czech players took advantage. Dana Březinová and Julie Jebousková scored to cap off the second win of the tournament. Vocetková was named Czechia’s player of the game.

Takeaways

Czechia will have a day to rest before facing Team Canada to decide the top seed going into the knockout round. With each team boasting two wins, Czechia can still take the top seed with any kind of win, even though their win over Switzerland was in overtime.

So what will it take? With four Illegal Hit penalties and two Too Many Players calls, head coach Dušan Andrašovský has his work cut out for him. Different leagues have their own measures for what level of body checking is acceptable. The IIHF, at times, seems to hand out these kind of penalties less often in games involving the North American teams, but the Czech players will have to be quick to determine what they can get away with and try not to cross that line, particularly against Canada, who are boasting one of the best power plays in the tournament. 

In terms of playing style, Czechia allowed Slovakia to take a lot of shots from the hash marks. Was this intentional– they trusted Nováková to stop those kinds of shots– or was it because the defenders were getting burned? It could be both. Nováková has proven herself able to cover up defensive lapses, which allows Czechia’s skaters to concentrate on offense. With that being said, this is not the kind of technique that is going to fly against the Canadians.