Teenage sensation Juraj Slafkovsky's fourth goal of these Olympics stood up as the winner as Slovakia beat Latvia 5-2 for its first Beijing victory on Sunday. Latvia finishes off Group C play winless.

"It feels great," Slafkovsky said. "Before the tournament, if someone had told me I’d score one or two goals, I would laugh, but it’s actually happening and I’m pretty happy that we won this game."

Slovakia outshot Latvia 33-20 and deserved the three points. The Latvians' dominance in the faceoff circle (34 wins on 55 draws) meant little in the face of Slovakia’s relentless attack.

"We started playing better in the third, but at that point, you’ve got to pick up the water you’ve already poured out," said Latvia's Rodrigo Abols, a five-time IIHF World Championship participant who wore the "C" with captain Lauris Darzins out of the lineup with an upper-body injury. "We’ve gotta stop doing that."

Martin Marincin, Peter Cehlarik, and Peter Zuzin scored their first Olympic goals for Slovakia. Tomas Jurco, who also played at the 2014 Olympics, added an empty-netter.

Ronalds Kenins and Miks Indrasis replied for Latvia.

"It was a tough game for us," said Indrasis. "You can’t win games with five goals against, so we need to be better in our own zone and breakouts."

Both nations face a tough task heading into the qualification round playoffs. Latvia peaked with an eighth-place finish in its last Olympic men’s tournament in 2014. Slovakia has finished 11th at the last two Olympics and achieved its best results in 2010 (fourth place).

"I think overall we played well the last two games but we just had some breakdowns that cost us some goals against," Cehlarik said. "It's hard to come back against teams like Sweden and Finland. But today, we were on top of our game and just played better."

In net, Patrik Rybar got his first Olympic start under head coach Craig Ramsay after replacing Matej Tomek and allowing no goals iin the 4-1 loss to Sweden. The Dinamo Minsk netminder, a two-time World Championship participant, was on the PyeongChang roster but never got to play.

Janis Kalnins (Vaxjo Lakers), a veteran of four Worlds, battled hard in his Olympic debut for Latvia. But like every other goalie that's faced Slovakia so far in this tournament, he couldn't keep the towering, cage-wearing Slafkovsky off the scoresheet.

"I think he [Slafkovsky] showed the way," Cehlarik said. "He’s hot, he’s young blood, he keeps shooting the puck and it’s going in. I’m happy he’s giving us energy."

Slovakia took the play to Latvia from the first minute, generating Grade-A scoring chances aplenty. Off an offensive zone faceoff, Samuel Takac tested Kalnins back-to-back in tight, and the Latvian goalie came up with a great left pad save and a glove grab.

At the 11-minute mark, Marincin opened the scoring, cleverly wristing a centre point shot through traffic that sailed past Kalnins’ glove. Marincin, who plays defence for HC Ocelari Trinec, logged 227 career NHL games with Edmonton and Toronto.

The Latvians picked up their intensity on the forecheck and Kenins potted the equalizer at 15:46. The three-time Swiss NLA champion took a Renars Krastenbergs feed from down low, pivoted at the top of the right faceoff circle, and flung the puck past Rybar.

First-period shots were 9-4 for Slovakia, and the Latvians were fortunate to keep the score 1-1.

In the second period, Latvian veteran Rihards Bukarts switched to jersey #75 after a puck had cut his ear and got blood on his regular jersey #14 in the opening stanza.

Cehlarik put Slovakia up 2-1 at 6:17. On the rush, captain Marek Hrivik sent the puck left to the Avangard Omsk attacker, and he confidently went to the backhand and shoveled it high past Kalnins. Cehlarik dazzled with 11 points in eight games at the 2021 Worlds in Riga and was named Best Forward.

"There are no weak teams here, so you get punished for every mistake you make, and we made a lot of those today," Abols said. "They scored three or four goals today because we lost the front of the net, which makes it really hard to win hockey games."

Slafkovsky, a TPS Turku prospect who is the youngest player in this tournament at 17, entered this game as Slovakia’s leading goal-scorer. The Kosice native had multiple opportunities for his fourth goal as the Slovaks peppered Kalnins during an early second-period power play. His time would come.

On a turnover inside the Latvian blue line, Slafkovsky pounced, curling into the slot and using defenceman Arturs Kulda as a decoy to whip home the 3-1 goal unassisted at 11:16.

The 192-cm, 99-kg phenom was happy to share the credit: "Our line is working so hard. My two linemates [Milos Roman and Pavol Regenda] are also playing very well. Maybe they don’t have as many points but they’re doing good things on the ice. For example, when I scored today they were both forechecking and I just got the puck and shot."

Surprisingly, Slafkovsky has never scored in seven career World Junior games (2021, 2022) and has just one goal in 21 Liiga games with TPS this season. 

A couple of minutes later, Cehlarik nearly set up Hrivik for a fourth goal, but Kalnins came across to foil the hard, rising shot from the left faceoff circle.

"I think in the second period we had four or five shots and one went in," Cehlarik said. "Today it was enough to get the win, and we’re going to bring more, I believe, the next game."

Unwilling to surrender, the Latvians cut the deficit to 3-2 at 2:07 of the third period. Indrasis, standing next to Rybar's crease, deftly redirected an Oskars Cibulskis point shot through the goalie's legs.

At 9:21, Zuzin restored Slovakia's two-goal lead, taking Milos Kelemen's great backhanded feed from behind the net and making no mistake from the slot.

The Lativans tried to mount a push in the late stages, but just couldn't get anything to click as Rybar locked it down in net. Jurco's empty-netter came with under one second remaining.

"We need to forget about it," Indrasis said. "The main games are in front of us, so we just have to keep our heads up because we have everything to gain."

With Darzins out, Latvian coach Harijs Vitolins inserted forward Toms Andersons, who suited up at the 2012 and 2013 World Juniors, for his senior IIHF debut.

At the IIHF World Championships, Slovakia has won one gold medal (2002), two silver medals (2000, 2012), and one bronze medal (2003). But the Central European nation is still seeking its first Olympic medal. You never know what can happen in a wide-open tournament like Beijing 2022.