Austria vs Switzerland

The Swiss needed just over five minutes to break the deadlock. Denis Malgin used his pace to engineer an odd-man rush, then slipped a backhand pass across for Theo Rochette, who buried a one-timer to make it 1-0 at 5:11.

Four minutes later, Dominik Egli carried the puck down the right wing, waited for support, and flipped it back to Timo Meier, who snapped a shot past David Kickert from the slot at 9:20.

"I think we just played for 60 minutes," Egli said. "Obviously, we had a great start, came out the right way. They had a lot of confidence before the game, so we didn't want to give them too much since they were coming off three wins."

The floodgates opened. Attilio Biasca battled hard in the corner and found Meier behind the net, who delivered a saucer pass onto the tape of Nico Hischier for a 3-0 lead at 11:28. Just 1:53 later, with Dominic Hackl in the box for hooking, Damien Riat scored from the slot on the power play — Sven Andrighetto and Dean Kukan providing the setup.

Four goals in the first period. Game effectively over.

Switzerland resumed the onslaught in the second period. A tripping penalty to Paul Stapelfeldt gave the Swiss another power play, and Nico Hischier pounced on a Timo Meier rebound at 29:42 for his second of the night.

Just 21 seconds later, Calvin Thürkauf lasered a shot from the top of the right faceoff circle high glove-side to make it 6-0 — his first goal of the tournament.

Austria pulled Kickert in favour of Florian Vorauer, but the change brought no respite. Theo Rochette wired a wrist shot from the left circle that Vorauer got a piece of but couldn't keep out. 7-0 at 32:19.

The third period brought more of the same. Peter Schneider took an elbowing penalty, and Damien Riat scored from the exact same spot as his first goal — the slot, on the power play — at 50:29. 8-0.

Austria's discipline crumbled further when Schneider was called for high sticking, and though the penalty expired before the puck went in, Christoph Bertschy finished from a tight angle at 56:02 to make it 9-0.

Sandwiched between the goals was a historic milestone: Swiss goaltender Leonardo Genoni stopped all 20 shots he faced to record his 13th career World Championship shutout, the all-time record.

"He's been unbelievable for us," captain Roman Josi said. "Every tournament he's at, I feel like he's the best goaltender. Just the way he plays, he's so calm back there. It just gives us that extra security."

Switzerland stayed perfect at 4-0-0-0 (12 points) atop Group A, while Austria dropped to 3-1-0-0 (9 points) but remained firmly in the playoff picture in third. The 9-0 margin was Switzerland's biggest win over Austria at the World Championship since a 10-1 victory in 1949.

"Despite the score, I think we played a full game. We didn't let up a little bit," Bertschy said. "It was a huge game from the first period to the third period."

Austria's Paul Stapelfeldt offered a blunt assessment: "We expected a really hard game and a really good Swiss team. I think you could see that they were a ton better than us. Always a step ahead of us, or two steps ahead of us, quick on everything. And that's the result."

• Shots: Switzerland 30, Austria 20
• Power play: Switzerland 3/4, Austria 0/4
• Goaltending: Genoni (W) 20/20; Kickert (L) 11/17, Vorauer 10/13
• Top scorers: Rochette 2G+1A, Hischier 2G, Riat 2G, Meier 1G+2A, Andrighetto 3A