The penultimate day of the men’s Division 1B tournament wasn’t without drama. Lithuania beat Croatia, but surprisingly the game went into overtime, handing the Lithuanians their first point loss in the tournament. However, on Friday, that won’t matter when Lithuania takes on Korea, the only team with a perfect record. 
 
Korea beat the hosts 4-1, setting up a winner-take-all final for Friday. The winner of the Korea v Lithuania game will earn promotion to Division 1A. 
 
“Korea is a fast team, so we need to play as a unit, just like we did against Estonia,” said Lithuanian forward Mark Kaleinikovas. 

China beat Spain in the last game of the day, 4-3, in a shootout. 

Lithuania – Croatia 2-1 OT (0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 1-0)

Lithuania came to the game undefeated, with a perfect 3-0-0 record. Croatia’s record was the mirror image, 0-0-3. Lithuania is still undefeated, but their record now has a small blemish on it, .as they beat Croatia on overtime, 2-1.  
 
Lithuania’s hero was Ugnius Cizas who scored the OT winner at 3.21. His teammate Mark Kaleinikovas scored one and added an assist. Croatia’s goaltender Vito Nikolic made 51 saves.
 
“Getting the win was what we wanted. It was a hard-fought game—we struggled to score but created a lot of chances and stayed patient. I liked our resiliency, even scoring late. We’ve put ourselves in a good spot for tomorrow;” Lithuania’s assistant coach Dan Lacroix said. 
 
Lithuania outshot Croatia 53-19 in the game. 
 
In the first period the shots favored Lithuania 23-5, but they just couldn’t solve Nikolic.
 
Croatia had their best chances of the period on power play and at one point, the puck was dancing on the goal line, but that was as close as they got. 
 
Halfway through the second period Kaleinikovas got the puck on Lithuania’s blueline. He flew down the left wing and fired a wrister from the left circle. Nikolic made the initial save, and he even stopped the next shot next one, but the puck stayed flat on the crease and Kaleinikovas could tap it in to give Lithuania the important 1-0 lead at 10.16. 
 
But like so many times before in the tournament. Croatia used their few chances with great efficiency. A little more than three minutes into the third period, Karlo Marinkovic and Borna Rendulic got on a  2-on-1. Marinkovic sent a gorgeous saucer pass to the tape of Rendulic’s stick and he tied the game at 3.47. The goal was the Croatian forward’s sixth point in the tournament.
 
In the OT, it was Croatia that had the best chances early on, but Laurynas Lubys in Lithuania’s net held his ground. 
 
Three minutes into the extra frame, the Croatian trio got stuck on the ice while Lithuania made a line change and gathered their troops in the neutral zone. Kaleinikovas sent a long pass to Nerijus Alisauskas on the far blueline, he stepped into the Croatian zone and flipped the puck to Cizas who fired a wrist shot that beat Nikolic.
 
Two points to Lithuania, one point to Croatia. 

Estonia – Korea 1-4 (1-2, 0-1, 0-1)

Korea scored four unanswered goals to rally back and beat Estonia 4-1. They also claimed the top spot I the group and now hold the Div1A berth in their hands. 
 
Korea’s Sanghoon Shin picked up two points, Chong Min Lee scored the game-winner. Morten Arantez Jurgens scored for Estonia. 
 
“We made mistakes you haven’t seen us make before in the tournament. We didn’t play our style of hockey, somehow, we lost the focus a little bit,” said Estonia coach Petri Skriko. 
 
“We need to get back to the basics,” he added. 
 
Estonia got start they had dreamt of, when Jurgens scored early. Marek Potsinok fired a slap shot from the blueline, and Korea’s netminder Jung Ho Ha left a rebound in front of the net, Jurgens grabbed it and beat Ha with a backhander from close range at 1.35.
 
But Korea came back, and they pushed Estonia on their heels halfway through the period. Before the period was halfway through. Sihwan Kim fired a shot from the left circle and this time it was Estonia’s Koitmaa who left a rebound and Sangyeob fKim fired it in at 8.02, to tie the game. 
 
Korea had the upper hand for most of the period and with 5.33 remaining, Jungwook Hong shook off the Estonian defenseman in the offensive zone. Koitmaa kept his eyes on Hong skating around the net but lost track of Min Chong Lee in front of it. Hong found Lee, and Lee found the back of the net at 14.27, giving Korea the lead in the game. 
 
Just 30 seconds later, Estonia got a powerplay opportunity, but Korea’s penalty kill worked without a hitch. 
 
Estonia did their best but couldn’t quite penetrate Korea’s defense. And the more Estonia pushed, the more it opened opportunities for Korea and with 3.20 remaining in the second period., Yoon Seok Kang doubled the Korean lead. Team captain Sangwood Kim found him in front of the net, and while Koitmaa made the initial save, Kang could retrieve the puck and, even on his knees, jam the puck in with a backhander. Sanghoon Shin also picked up an assist. 
                                                                                                 
Estonia came to the third period like a team possessed, peppering Ha with shot, but to no avail. 
 
Korea, on the other hand, needed only one chance to score. A Korean defenseman intercepted a pass om the blueline and sent the puck quickly up the ice to Shin, who found Yuchan Kong in the slot. He beat Koitmaa with a quick snapshot to make it 4-1. 

China – Spain 4-3 SO (1-0, 2-1, 0-2)

Three important points were up for grabs in the late game in Tallinn. Winner would most likely claw itself to solid ground as far as relegation is concerned. China seized the opportunity by beating Spain 4-3x, even if it was in a shootout. 

China's Renhan Xu collected three points, Yuyang Houi was recorded with the game winner. 

It was a game of dueling power play units. 
 
The first period was even but Spanish penalties tilted the ice in China’s favor. They managed to kill the first three penalties, but the fourth one was too much, and China could take the lead with 23 seconds remaining in the period. Yoyang Hou and Renhan Xu set and Zesen Zhang up for a tap-in from the doorstep to give China the lead in the game.
 
China made it 2-0, also on powerplay 3.14 into the second period. Yuyang Zhang won the faceoff to Pengfei Zhang who sent the puck straight to Xu who fired a wrister that got redirected top shelf off a Spanish defenseman. 
 
Five minutes later, the Chinese PP struck again. This time they delivered a nice tic-tac-toe combination that tore the Spanish box apart and Yuncheng Yan had an easy job to redirect Zhang’s pass into the Spanish net a t8.56. 
 
But Spain also had a lethal powerplay unit. Oriol Rubio won the offensive zone faceoff and Jaime Bonilla found Gaston Gonzalez whose wrist shot beat Chen on the glove side to put Spain on the board, 3-1. 
 
Spain came re-energized to the third, and just 2.16 into the period Rubio scored a beautiful goal off Alejandro Carbonell’s no-look pass that fooled the entire Chinese defense. Rubio showed great patience when he waited out Chen before firing the puck into the net to bring Spain within one. 

And the Spanish powerplay wasn’t done. Once they got set up in China’s zone with a little more than six minutes remaining in the period, Jaime Capillas didn’t hesitate when he fired a slap shot beat Chen cleanly and tied the game. 

Neither team scored in overtime and the game went into a shootout. Hou scored twice, Capillas once for Spain.