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Switzerland beats Denmark, Finland pushed to relegation round at WJC

Josh Cooper
MONTREAL, QC - DECEMBER 30: Yannick Zehndery #19 of Team Switzerland celebrates his third period goal with teammates on the bench during the 2017 IIHF World Junior Championship preliminary round game against Team Denmark at the Bell Centre on December 30, 2016 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
Yannick Zehndery of Team Switzerland celebrates his third period goal with teammates on the bench during the 2017 IIHF World Junior Championship preliminary round game against Team Denmark at the Bell Centre on December 30, 2016 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Getty Images)

Just one year after winning the World Juniors, Team Finland has been pushed into the relegation round after Switzerland punched their ticket to the quarterfinal with a 5-4 shootout win over Denmark.

Finland needed Switzerland to lose to have a chance to avoid the relegation round. The Finns lost to Sweden on Thursday and are winless heading into their final game Saturday against the Swiss. If Denmark had beat Switzerland, Finland could have avoided the relegation series with a victory Saturday.

Finland is the first team in tournament history to go from champions to the relegation round in one year. The Finns will now be forced to play the best-of-three series against Latvia to secure a spot in next year’s tournament.

Marco Mirando scored the shootout winner as the Swiss overcame deficits of 3-0 and 4-1 in the contest to pick up the victory.

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Finland’s struggles this tournament capped a stunning drop-off for a team that had won the World Juniors two of the last three years.

According to Finnish reporter Sami Hoffren, coach Jukka Rautakorpi and three assistant coaches were fired Friday.

Finland lost Patrik Laine, Jesse Puljujarvi and Sebastian Aho to the NHL from last year’s team, but before the tournament they were still considered a group that had some firepower.

The Hockey News highlighted some of Finland’s top players in its World Junior preview.

(Eeli) Tolvanen must take on a big role at the world juniors. Finland has a pretty impressive defense corps, led by Vancouver first-rounder Olli Juolevi and Detroit pick Vili Saarijarvi, while Veini Vehvilainen returns in net. Up front is the big question, since the best players will be younger. Along with Tolvanen, there’s another hot 2017 prospect in power forward Kristian Vesalainen – who was also very active at the summer tournament in Michigan. Florida Panthers 2016 first-rounder Henrik Borgstrom is also one to watch, as the center is off to an excellent freshman season at the University of Denver.

Finland scored just four goals in their three losses and forward Joona Luoto was the only Finnish player to score multiple points in those contests.

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The team lost two one-goal games – 2-1 to the Czech Republic and then 3-2 to Denmark – before losing 3-1 to rival Sweden.

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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