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Warriors’ Lang, Czech Republic finish round robin 2-2, to face Canada in quarters

Solid 7-0 win over Austria sends Czechs into playoffs tonight against powerhouse Canadians
World Juniors Lang Mysak
Moose Jaw Warriors forward Martin Lang (left) celebrates with Czech Republic captain Jan Mysak and their teammates after defeating Austria to close out the round robin on New Year’s Eve.
Moose Jaw Warriors forward Martin Lang and his Czech Republic teammates have reached one of their primary goals at the World Junior Hockey Championships in Edmonton: make the playoff round.

Now they have one of the toughest tests imaginable ahead of them at the tournament later Saturday night as they take on undefeated Canada in the third quarter-final game of the day.

The Czechs wrapped up the round robin on New Years Eve with a comfortable 7-0 win over Austria to finish fourth in Pool B with a 2-2 record. Earlier in the tournament, the Czech Republic lost their opener 7-1 to Sweden before bouncing back with the upset of the tournament with a 2-0 win over Russia. That was followed with a 7-0 loss to the United States before closing out the round robin against Austria.

In that contest, Lang continued his solid play at the event, again taking the ice on the top line alongside Michael Teply of the Winnipeg Ice and team captain Jan Mysak of the OHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs.

Lang would finish the contest with two goals and an assist, as the two teams found themselves in a scoreless tie after the first before the Czechs broke out with four second-period goals. All told, Lang had 21 shifts for 19:34 in ice time.

Lang capped the round robin with three goals and an assist in four games, to go along with a plus-three plus/minus.

Next up will be as tough a playoff test as they come against a surging Team Canada.

“They’re pretty good, I know some of the guys there and they’re pretty good, it’s going to be a tough game,” Mysak told Mark Meadows of TSN.ca. “We’ll see… we have to be a very tough team, we have to play together. We want to beat them, nothing is impossible, we’ll see.”

The thing is, that win over Russia looms large over the proceedings -- and if they can put together a similar showing tonight, things could be very interesting indeed.

“We played as a team, we played together and blocked a lot of shots and our goalie, he had a good game, so that’s going to be a key point for the next game,” Mysak said.

“The mood is really good, we have a really great group of guys and we’re excited for the game, so we’ll be ready.”

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