PARIS — Winger Patrick Hager scored a late winning goal on his home ice as Germany stunned the United States with a 2-1 win on the opening day of the ice hockey world championships on Friday.

Three minutes after the Americans had equalized through defenseman Connor Murphy, the Germans scored a scrappy second on a power-play with six minutes remaining. Left winger Hager got the slightest touch to Yannic Seidenberg’s slapshot through traffic and goaltender Jimmy Howard was beaten from close range.

“We had good energy coming into the game and we had to channel that in the right way,” Hager said. “We worked hard, and we worked as a team.”

At the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, where Hager plays his club hockey for DEL team Koelner Haie, more than 18,000 fans watched the Germans go 1-0 ahead 11 minutes into the first period through Arizona Coyotes right winger Tobias Rieder. He showed good composure to finish from close range after a speculative shot from the right was poorly dealt with by Howard, who allowed the puck to cannon off his pad.

“It was the first game of the tournament, the crowd was crazy and that definitely helped,” German center Brooks Macek said. “I think you could see that in our game, we were skating, blocking shots, we were doing the right things.”

Although Hager got the dramatic winner, German goaltender Thomas Greiss — who plays for the New York Islanders — showed his NHL credentials and was named man of the match.