Helene St. James

Detroit Free Press

Dylan Larkin and the U.S. will need a good performance against a Detroit Red Wings teammate to advance at the World Championship.

The U.S. was handed an eyebrow-raising 3-2 loss by Germany today in a preliminary Group B game in St. Petersburg, Russia. The victory secures the Germans a spot in the quarterfinals. The Americans were helped later in the day when Teemu Pulkkinen's Finland routed Tomas Jurco's Slovakia, 5-0, which kept Slovakia in fifth place with six points.

The U.S. sits in fourth place with nine points. The top four teams in each two groups advance to the knockout round.

The U.S. loss adds intrigue to its last preliminary game, which is against Slovakia. The first tiebreaker between teams with an equal amount of points is head-to-head competition (a team gets three points for a regulation victory, two points for any other kind of victory and one point for a non-regulation loss). So if the U.S. gets at least one point against the Slovaks (achieved if the game is tied after regulation), the U.S. advances.

While Larkin has had a good individual tournament with a team-leading six points, the U.S. has lost to hockey power houses Canada and Finland while getting by on beating lesser teams in Belarus, France and Hungary.

In other Wings news, Gustav Nyquist scored a tournament-leading seventh time as Sweden beat Switzerland 3-2 in a shootout, securing the Swedes a spot in the quarterfinals along with fellow group A members the Czechs and the Russians. Also on Sunday, Denmark became the first team to hand the Czechs a loss in a 2-1 shootout.

In group B, the Finns and Canadians have also secured spots in the quarterfinals.

More Wolverines: J.T. Compher had one assist today for the Americans. Kyle Connor did not play today, while Tyler Motte had one shot on goal in 12:28 of ice time for the U.S.

Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.

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