Sweden, Russia earn ticket for quarterfinals

Germany - Sweden 0-4 (0-1, 0-0, 0-3)

The Swedish team used the opportunity to make free the way to the quarterfinals. Their goal was to avoid a risky "all or nothing" match against hosts Russia in the last match of group B on Thursday. Germany again managed to keep a game open for a very long time before falling apart in the last 20 minutes.  

Just exactly one minute was played before Emma Nordin tipped in a long range blast by Emma Eliasson to get the early lead for Sweden. Several penalties on both sides in the followng minutes avoided that the match could really develop before the first intermission. The Scandinavians started well into the middle period but Winberg twice failed from an excellent scoring position. Kratzer had the best chance till then for Germany when she was denied a goal with a rebound from short distance with a big save by Martin Hasson at 33:26. After killing a penalty at a very crucial point at the start of the third period, this gave the momentum to Sweden who scored just a minute later at 47:42. Cecilia Ostberg finished a one-two combination with Anna Borgqvist to decide the match. A deflected slapshot by Johanna Olofsson and a short distance goal by Pernilla Winberg even made it 4-0 for the favourites. The Germans did only the necessary to avoid a complete debacle and weren't able to bring the Swedes into danger anymore.

Russia - Japan 2-1 (1-0, 0-0, 1-1)

For the second time during this Olympic tournament Japan showed that they have the skills to compete with the top group of international women's hockey but after the 0-1 loss against Sweden on Sunday again they were beaten by a one-goal margin. Gavrilova missing the net after a rebound and Pashekvich after a rush had high-calibre scoring opportunities for the home side before Tatyana Burina was able to use the Russian dominance to score a wrist shot through the five hole of Japanese goalie Fujimoto at 11:39. A few minutes later Russia had a big chance during a power play when again Burina was in the centre of attraction whe she hit the goal post after a brilliant pass by Skiba. A strange situation occured when the puck seemed to have crosses the goal line during one of the few dangerous Japanese attacks but the referees didn't choose to watch the video replays.

In the middle period the Russian dominace was even higher but despite 21-4 shots on target they failed to increase their small lead. Especially in the second half of the period they had a series of big chances by the minutes. This was punished by the Asians just after the start of the third period when Ayaka Toko surprised Russian goalie Prugova with a harmless long distance shot that went just by her glove. Pushkevich with a shorthanded rush with ten minutes left on the clock had the biggest chance to give Russia the lead back. On the other side Osawa had two huge chances within half a minute when she first missed the net from short distance and then hit the goal post. Just when Japan had it's best stage of the hockey game the Shayba Arena exploded when Alexandra Vafina ended another short handed rush by the Eastern Europeans to score the 2-1 game winner! In the remaining time Japan had still a couple of big chances for the equalizer but even with an additional skater after pulling out their goalie, they couldn't force a goal anymore!  

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