GB U20 5-3 Lithuania U20

Great Britain Under-20s beat Lithuania U20s 5-3 in the final warm-up game ahead of the U20 World Championship getting under way next week.

GB begin the six-team Division II Group A tournament in Vilnius with a match against Japan Under-20s on Monday.

Britain had a strong first period as Cade Neilson went close on his backhand while Reece Cochrane put his shot wide.

Mason Alderson Biddulph dangled his way through for a chance early in the second session, before GB went ahead when Louis Chabot created the turnover behind the net and fed Austin Mitchell-King to score the opening goal.

A great skate into the zone saw Neilson set up Alderson Biddulph on the powerplay at the backdoor (30:48), while Lithuania got on the board through Martynas Grinius after a turnover in the GB zone (31:55).

GB scored their second powerplay goal of the afternoon when Zach Milton fed Caly Robertson in the slot (34:48), but Lithuania came back again thanks to a fantastic solo goal by Egidijus Binkulis (38:02).

Titas Milasius levelled the game up on the powerplay after a goalmouth scramble (45:31), before Louis Chabot netted on the doorstep following a well-worked move with a two-man advantage to put GB ahead again and Oliver Lord wrapped the game up with an empty-net goal from his own zone (58:04).

The two sides then practiced overtime and penalty shots, with Lithuania winning them both.

Head coach, Martin Grubb, said: “This was another very useful exercise for us as part of the preparation for the tournament.

“I thought we were much better today and we have seen definite signs of progression after we made some adjustments to our systems and I thought we executed well.

“We know there is still some areas of development and we will continue to review and amend as needed to be ready for the Japan game on Monday.

“The players deserve credit for responding to what we asked of them and we can take confidence from a win against a very good team.”

After Monday’s game with Japan (10am UK time face-off), GB then play Lithuania, Romania, Spain and Serbia.

All of GB’s games will be shown live on FreeSports with commentary led by Aaron Murphy and former GB forward Paul Adey.