TORONTO — A drama-filled game restored some swagger to Russia while leaving the Swiss nursing their wounds Sunday at the world junior hockey championship.

Russia emerged a 7-0 winner despite being outshot 32-23 — including a 7-1 stretch at the start of the game — and being a man short for 10:03 of a combative second period that saw Swiss defenceman Phil Baltisberger stretchered off after being flattened by a controversial hit.

Switzerland's Montreal-born coach John Fust was left shaking his head at the numbers — and the final outcome.

"We got off to a good start, we were able to establish our game plan the first 10 minutes. But then any time we had turnovers, that's a very good team that has a lot of offensive potential and they put the puck in the net and we didn't when we had our chance."

Russian goalie Igor Shestyorkin was equal to any challenge, getting some help from his goalpost in the final minute as the hard-working Swiss were denied on a pair of two-on-one opportunities.

Ludovic Waeber replaced Gauthier Descloux in the Swiss goal to open the third. Descloux gave up five goals on 13 shots but was not helped by Swiss turnovers.

Rushan Rafikov, Alexander Dergachyov, Pavel Buchnevich, Sergei Tolchinski, Alexander Sharov, Vladislav Kamenev and Vyacheslav Leshenko scored for Russia.

The win moves Russia (2-0 with one shootout win) past the Swiss (1-1) into second place in Group B. The Russians meet the unbeaten Swedes (2-0) on Monday.

The Russians, bronze medallist a year ago, opened the tournament with a 3-2 shootout win over unheralded Denmark. The Swiss, seventh last time out, beat the Czechs 5-2 for the first time at the tournament since 1998.

Russian coach Valeri Bragin said there was no panic in his camp after the tough tournament opener.

"I didn't say anything (to the team)," he said. "It was the first game."

The Russians were outshot but made the most of their scoring chances, as evidenced by two goals on four shots in the second period. Russia led 3-0 after the first period and 5-0 after a second period in which it was outshot 14-4.

Russia was penalized repeatedly in the second period, with Bragin saying diplomatically through an interpreter afterwards that "there might have been some discrepancies in calls made."

"Referee is referee," the coach said in English with a wry smile.

Anatoli Golyshev was ejected for the blindside hit on Baltisberger, given a five-minute interference penalty that carried an automatic game misconduct. There was no immediate word on the Guelph Storm defenceman, who was able to move but was taken to hospital nevertheless.

"It's difficult when one of your players goes down like that," said Fust. "He's a very popular player ... Obviously It's a point where you can rally around but the fact that he stayed on the ice that long, we're all human and we were all worried about him and we didn't get a diagnosis right away.

"It probably did have an effect, to take a little bit of the air out of the tires for us. But that's no excuse, you have to play through those situations."

Swiss captain Yannick Rathgeb, who saw a player paralysed in a game two years ago in his home town in Switzerland, was happy to report after the game that his teammate had a sore neck but was able to move.

There was confusion as Baltisberger lay prone on the ice. Fust said initially there was no penalty called they were told "because nobody saw it," while Bragin said the initial call was a minor penalty which escalated once the player remained down.

Bragin said he had not seen the hit but the feeling on his bench was that it was not a hit to the head.

Fust's camp saw it differently.

"I have not seen the replay yet but I was told by people that did see it that it was a head-shot as well," the Swiss coach said. "We'll have to obviously see what happens with that."

There will be a hearing on the hit.

The Golyshev major coincided with a minor penalty that gave the Swiss a five-on-three for more than one minute.

"We were a little lucky and Shestyorkin played very well," said Bragin.

Tolchinski, with a rare Russian shot, made it 4-0 at 15:29 as the Swiss were punished for another turnover.

Sharov added a fifth Russian goal at 17:36, beating Descloux with a wrist shot after a nifty move at the blue-line to elude a defender.

Kamenev and Leshenko padded the lead late in the third period.

"The guys can still hold their heads up high," said Fust, whose young team has an off-day before facing Denmark on Tuesday. "It wasn't a 7-0 game. But we need to improve."

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