China – Korea 7-0 (2-0, 1-0, 4-0) / Game Sheet
In the second game of the tournament, Korea had another busy night, against China, the top seeded team in the tournament and seventh in the IIHF Women’s World Ranking.
China started its quest to defend last year’s title by taking a lead in the game at 12:39 with a goal scored by Sun Rui from the slot after a good setup by Zhang Ben from the end zone. Throughout the period, China kept the pressure on Korea’s end but despite 22 shots on Shin So Jung, only Gao Fujin was able to get the puck past her. At 16:38, she one-timed a pass from Ma Rui to make it 2-0 for China after the first period.
In the second period the Chinese continued to control the puck, but they didn’t succeed with their scoring chance until 39:00, when Zhang Mengying successfully finished a coast-to-coast run and put in the puck past Shin So Jung. The Korean goalkeeper was able to stop 34 shots in the second period. Korea seemed happy trying to defend its net without much offensive effort and not a single shot taken at Han Danni on the Chinese goal.
In third period, China started to play its attacks more straightforwardly on Korea’s goal chasing the rebounds to improve the scoring efficiency. At 43:29, the strategy worked out when Zhang Shuang finished a rebound followed by a shot from Qi Xuetin. At 48:39, China extended the lead on a power play when Zhang Ben had no problems to shoot the puck into the empty net from the back post following the assists by Zhang and Tang Liang. With goals by Tang at 52:57 and Gao at 59:19, China finished the game against Korea with a 7-0 sweep while the tournament ended for Korea without a goal in its first participation.
