Finland largely clamped down on quality chances, keeping the Belarusian attack to the outside. The same could be said about Belarus and their commitment to keeping the Finns honest. While Belarus was limited to three shots in the second period, Finland was only able to manage four.

"There was good defence from both teams," said Kontiola. "We had to shoot from outside and we couldn't get into the middle. Neither team really had any good scoring chances so that's why there weren't many shots on goal."

Belarus was given a man advantage at 10:06 of the third when Leo Komarov was called off for interference after barreling into netminder Kevin Lalande. Grabovski managed to get off a shot, but otherwise not much power play offence was generated. Given how important special teams are in such close games, Belarus missed an opportunity to try and level the game.

Despite this, Belarus continued to press several flurries on offence yielded a few shots and anxious moments for Finland but nothing got past Rinne, who stopped all 15 shots he faced.

Then with 4:14 remaining, Alexander Kitarov sent a backpass to Andrei Kostitsyn for a shot that Rinne used his blocker to stop. 

A penalty at 17:54 of the third on Dmitri Korobov meant that Belarus would spend the rest of the game shorthanded. Belarus pulled Lalande and worked the puck deep but Jori Lehtera took the puck the other way into the offensive zone and found Kontiola for an empty netter, his second of the contest. It as a power play, empty net goal. Olli Jokinen got the other assist.

The game ended 2-0 as Finland and Belarus are now both two wins and two losses in Group B of this tournament.