"It’s nice to be back on the Slovenian bench. At this moment I’m really very happy. I’m proud of our players, who deserved to win. Now, they also have self-confidence, which we will need as the tournament progresses. They showed a fighting spirit, which is necessary for playing against the other teams at this tournament. I’m thrilled. These are my first Olympic Games as a head coach, and you never know how your team will react in the first match and how nervous some of the players will be. But they were really self-confident. Even when we were in trouble in the first two periods, we still had chances to score. Maybe that gave them the courage to go on," said Savolainen, who was named Slovenia’s head coach last year for a second time after 12 years (in the meantime he also served as an advisor to the Slovenian coaching staff).
"We knew that the Americans are a great team, and that they have real quality players despite the absence of those playing in the NHL. All those on the team still have the potential to play in the NHL. And many of them play in the KHL league, which is something we don’t have, so we knew it was going to be a tough task. But they don’t have the team chemistry we do. We remained focused until the end and didn’t let go. I saw a real fighting spirit in my teammates. Mistakes happen, but we believed that we could end the match in our favour. We were close several times, but always lacked something. Then in the last five minutes we became a totally different team. It’s unbelievable; for the first time ever we’ve beaten the US, which is a really big team," was thrilled Slovenia’s goalkeeper Gašper Krošelj, who had 34 saves and contributed his share in Slovenia winning the two points.
The 31-year-old goalkeeper was one of Slovenia’s three debutants at the Olympics. Everyone else already had an Olympic experience on Russian ice in Sochi 2014. Yesterday’s match started with a fast-paced rhythm and the Americans were better in the first period. They created many opportunities, but it was the Lynx that had the best chance to score through Sabahudin Kovačević, who actually faced an empty goal and would have scored if not for the excellent intervention by US defender Noah Welch. In the first twenty minutes the total shots statistic was 11:3 in favour of the US. In the second period the Lynx were more dangerous. They didn’t have any great goal chances, but closed in on the US in terms of shooting (13:9).
In the last 15 minutes the Lynx were outstanding. In the end it was 36:25 in total shots in favour of the Americans, but before the end of regulation the Slovenians dominated the ice. A goal 14 minutes before the end gave the Slovenians some extra energy. And then with just under two minutes to go, Blaž Gregorc fired a shot from the right, Jan Urbas piked up the puck in front of goal and sent it behind the back of goalkeeper Ryan Zapolski, who is otherwise having a good season in the Russian KHL league. "Outstanding. We didn’t open the match well and when we did have those few chances we didn’t score. But things opened for us in the end. We scored those two goals, equalized, and then decided the match in overtime. Especially in the end, we were much better than the Americans. We were still a bit nervous at the start, after all it was our first match at these Olympics. But we pulled ourselves together in the third period and things opened up. We could sense that they were vulnerable, even at the beginning. We had an empty goal chance but failed to score. We saw that the Americans are no bogeymen. We showed that on the ice and beat them. We showed that we don’t give up and that we bite until the end," said Gregorc, who makes up Slovenia’s first defending pair together with Mitja Robar.

"Before the start of the last period, I tried to motivate and encourage our players that we were just two goals down and that we still had a chance. That if we could create more chances in the third period, we could stage a comeback. In those kinds of situations the mental part is more important than tactics. Players have to fight and believe in themselves," is how coach Savolainen described how they prepared for the last 20 minutes. In overtime he started with a formation of three attackers.

The heads are now focused on the next opponent, the Russians. Considered as the main tournament favourites, the Russians surprisingly lost to Slovakia in their opener. Their match against Slovenia starts on Friday at 08.40 a.m Slovenian time (CET).