On Day 5 at the World Championship, a pair of CHL goalies engaged in a duel in Prague between Germany and Switzerland that went almost right to the end, and another scored a big goal to get France a key win. 

by Derek O'Brien, with contributions from Staff Writers

PRAGUE and OSTRAVA – As teams started playing their third games of the group stage on Monday, three teams remained unbeaten at the end of the day – Sweden and Canada in Group A and the USA in Group B.

Group A included a couple of key battles – one for third place and another to avoid the basement – which both remained scoreless into the third period.

The first game was a goaltending battle between a couple of CHL goalies – Germany's Timo Pielmeier from ERC Ingoldstadt and Switzerland's Leonardo Genoni of HC Davos. Both teams fired 18 shots on goal, but Genoni made one more save. It remained scoreless into the 53rd minute when Switzerland's Denis Hollenstein, who played in the CHL last season for the Kloten Flyers, was left all alone in front of the German net. With Pielmeier at his mercy, he made a move to his backhand and went upstairs for the game's only goal.

“My job is to give the team a chance to win the game, so I think I did that, but in the end we couldn't get the dirty goal we needed. Now we just have to look ahead to the next game and not worry about the past,” Pielmeier said when it was all over.

“It was really hard because we had to stay concentrated for the whole game. It was actually mentally tough, but we are really happy for the win,” said Genoni, his counterpart at the other end, who stopped all 18 shots he faced. “I am so happy because if you get a shutout, you obviously win the game.”

Later that night in Prague, Austria met France. The French entered the game still looking for their first points, and faced a situation where relegation would become a danger if they lost to the Austrians, who had two points already. It was early in the third period when Damien Fleury of Djurgarden Stockholm opened the scoring. An empty-net goal made it a 2–0 French win.

"I knew that when Stephane (da Costa) was going to take the one-timer I should go to the net, and I managed to tip it a little bit. It was a good goal." Fleury explained afterward.

Meanwhile over in Ostrava, Denmark scored a first-period goal against Belarus but then gave up five straight goals to lose the game 5–1. That's not all they lost, as defenceman Jesper B. Jensen of Farjestad Karlstad was suspended one game for a check from behind during the game. He'll miss their game Wednesday against Russia.

In the Ostrava nightcap, Slovakia was again in danger of dropping points to one of Group B's lower-ranked teams, but rallied from a 1–0 deficit in the third period to beat Slovenia 3–1.

With their wins, Belarus and Slovakia both jump up the standings, into a tie for second in Group B with seven points, trailing the USA.

After three games played for all teams, here are the top scorers among players from Champions Hockey League clubs: