Belarus wins Norway

Belarus blew two leads but rallied with two late goals to win the team's final game of the 2017 World Championships, 4-3.

Belarus finishes in 7th place in Group B with a record of 2-0-1-4 and Norway sits in 6th with a 2-0-2-3 record.

Today's win was secured with late goals from Ilya Shinkevich and Yevgeni Lisovets, his second of the game.

The win came even though Belarus coach Dave Lewis had only 17 skaters in the lineup. Goalie Kevin Lalande was given the night off, but Vladimir Denisov, Danila Karaban, and Roman Graborenko were all out with injuries. As well, the Kostitsyn brothers didn't dress.

There was not a lot of action in today's opening period, perhaps because the game had little bearing on the advancement of the tournament. Norway was clearly the more interested team early on, though, and had two good chances to open the scoring in the first period.

Mathis Olimb made a good deflection in front, but Mikhail Karnaukhov got a pad on the tip. Soon after, Patrick Thoresen and Aleksander Reichenberg had a good give-and-go in close, but again they were bested by the Karnaukhov.

Belarus got their legs in the second and got the first goal off a bad error by goalie Lars Haugen behind his goal. He came out to play the puck but fanned on his shot, allowing Lisovets to swipe it into the empty net before Haugen could recover.

Norway got back into the game late in the period. Although it didn't capitalize on a two-man advantage for 34 seconds, it tied the game as the second Belarus penalty expired. The goal came thanks to a screen shot from the high slot from Daniel Sorvik that beat Karnaukhov over the shoulder.

Alexander Kulakov gave the Belorussians their second lead at 17:52. Norway failed to clear the zone, and Kulakov wired a shot under the glove of Haugen to make it 2-1.

It didn't take long, though, for Norway to equalize again. Just 1:19 into the third, Reichenburg got the puck in the Belarus end and walked out front unmolested, beating Karnaukhov with a shot to the short side.

Captain Jonas Holos gave the Norwegians their first lead just two minutes later, converting a great pass from the corner after a series of quick passes left the Belarus defence scrambling.

But just when it looked like Norway has gotten into a winning rhythm, Belsrus struck at 14:06 with the tying goal (Shinkevich) and again at 16:56 (Lisovets) with the winner.