Great Britain are just one point away from locking the gold medal and with that promotion to Division 1 Group A after a 3-2 victory over the Netherlands on Saturday evening in Eindhoven.
The game between Great Britain and the Netherlands was played in front of a packed arena and the fans got value for their money. In the end it were the British fans that had all reason to cheer as “God Save the Queen” was played for the fourth consecutive time.
“Coming into today’s game as the group leaders does bring extra pressure,” admitted Jonathan Boxill. “There’s no denying that but our coaching staff is preparing us well and helping us doing our job as well as possible.”
Contrary to previous games, the Dutch found themselves ahead early on. Jordy van Oorschot managed to keep the puck in the offensive zone after which Diederick Hagemeijer found Steve Mason in front of the net. The son of Klagenfurter AC coach Doug Mason, made no mistake and one-timed the puck behind GB Netminder Ben Bowns.
The orange dressed fans couldn’t enjoy the lead for long as within a minute the Brits equalized when a Paul Swindlehurst shot surprised the Netherlands goaltender Martijn Oosterwijk who was partly screened on the play.
It wasn’t Oosterwijk’s night as he didn’t look good when Chris Blight found space between the post and the arm of the netminder to give GB the 2-1 lead. Things then went from bad to worse when the Netherlands failed to properly clear a puck giving Craig Peacock the opportunity to slide the puck underneath a hesitating Dutch goalie to give Great Britain a 3-1 lead.
That goal marked the end of Oosterwijk’s game as he was immediately pulled after the goal and replaced by Ian Meierdres.
The goalie change did stop the goalscorring flurry. Although both teams hit the post once neither was able to dominate in the second stanza which lacked good scoring opportunities, but saw GB control the puck and slow the game to their level.
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This changed in the third period which was more open as the hosts were taking more risks in order to get back into the game.
The Dutch pressure finally aid off after Ian Meierdres made the save of the night with a diving stop on his right to deny Rob Dowd, the play went straight to the other nef and it was Levi Houkes who connected with a deflection from Maarten Brekelmans to cut the deficit back to one for the Netherlands.
The Brits are no strangers to defending one goal leads though. After all their previous three victories this tournament came with the smallest possible margin.
“A win is a win regardless of how big it is,” said Great Britain’s dynamo Boxill afterwards. “The Netherlands were strong today and played a good system which caused us problem. Also the goalie, Meierdres, did terrific for them.”
The Dutch netminder finished stopping all 19 shots he faced after coming in as a replacement for Oosterwijk.
The last 20 seconds were nailbiting for the GB fans as David Phillips was sent to the penalty box and the Dutch pulled their goaltender to create a two man advantage but Great Britain survived the frantic finale.
Chris Eimers was visibly disappointed. “This was an unneccessary loss. For a change we do start the game well but we give away the goals far too easily.”
The win prolongs the British winning streak which now stands at four games this tournament. Great Britain leads runner-up Korea by two points. A single point against Lithuania would see team GB return Division 1A. The team participated at that level previously in 2012 and 2013.
For the Netherlands the loss means they can get ready for the game against pointless Estonia tomorrow. The game will decide on which team will relegate to Division 2. The Dutch require just a point to send Estonia down.