He engineered Kalyuzhny’s first-period marker when a slashing call on Morten Ask handed Belarus the first big opportunity of the game in seventh minute. Kostitsyn got into a shooting position only to deceive the Norwegian defence by sliding a pass out to his captain at the base of the circle. The experienced forward gobbles up chances like that and he beat his Dinamo Minsk colleague Lars Haugen to give his team a vital early lead.

The rest of the first period was quiet, with Belarus perhaps reluctant to gamble too heavily on offence and neither side getting a really good look at goal. But the Belarusian PP came back with a vengeance midway through the second, punishing Alexander Bonsaksen for his 2+2 high sticking infringement thanks to another great Kostitsyn play. He picked up Kalyuzhny’s puck in the central channel, ghosted past a defenceman and dropped a deft pass to Dmitri Korobov on the face off spot. The D-man waited for Haugen to commit himself at the near post before picking out the far corner to double the lead on 29:01.

Soon it was 3-0 with Andrei Kostitsyn getting the third power play goal of the afternoon – a huge step for Belarus, which had previously managed a miserly 5% conversion rate when it had a man advantage. Kalyuzhny was involved again, playing the puck along the red line to find Kostitsyn Jnr on the doorstep, where he lifted it under the bar to put his team on the brink of the last eight.

Norway had only posed an intermittent threat, and its best moments came from Patrick Thoresen. The SKA St. Petersburg forward was denied in a one-on-one breakaway early in the second, but got on the scoresheet right after the third Belarusian goal. Matthis Olimb did the hard work, rushing behind the net and popping out an inviting pass for Thoresen to rifle the puck into the open corner of Kevin Lalande’s net and reduce the deficit.

That injected a little extra pace into the game, but there was little to suggest that things were about to explode in the third. Norstebo dropped the first bomb, hauling us back to a one-goal game with yet another trademark shot from the blue line as Thoresen screened Lalande. The Norwegian defenceman is still in his teens but he has three World Championship goals to his account from this competition.

Norwegian forward Morten Ask said: "We fought back in the second half of the game. This has been a difficult tournament for us and we didn’t want to go out by getting beat so bad. Everyone really worked hard to make sure that didn’t happen and we came back but it was too little too late."

After his goal Norway began to swarm around Lalande’s net, shooting on sight in a bid for an equalizer. What had looked like a serene passage for Belarus was sailing into choppy waters as the Norwegian revelled in the backing of a large crowd boosted by parties from local schools. Many of the youngsters were rooting against Belarus in the hope of seeing Slovakia sneak into the play-offs at the last moment and high-pitched cries of 'Norge! Norge!' shrilled around the arena as Belarus killed a penalty late on and saw out the win it needed to advance.

Belarus now travels to Prague for a showdown with Group A winner Canada. Norway finishes sixth in Group B and will return for next year's tournament in Russia.