Swedes win bronze medal

Brone Medal Game

Sweden - Czech Republic 3-0 (2-0, 0-0, 1-0)

In a full Minsk Arena it was all or nothing for Sweden and Czech Republic after painful semifinal losses yesterday. While Sweden was beaten by Russia (1-3), the Czechs were kept scoreless over the whole 60 minutes by Finland (0-3).

The Czechs actually had the better start and tried to intimidate their Swedish opponents with aggressive forechecking. The result were several easy puck losses by the Scandinavian defense in their own third. Out of the blue though a lucky deflection opened the score 1-0 in favour of Sweden. At 04:28 it was Joakim Lindstrom who tried to find Oscar Moller with a pass from behidn the net and the puck went in past the surprised Alexander Salák in the Czech net. But not from the stick of Moller but the puck hit the stick of Czech defender Petr Zamorsky.


Sweden celebrating the first goal.
Photo: Roman Kucera

In the following minutes the Czechs were the more active side and were able to create danger in front of the Swedish net. On the other side Joakim Lindstrom almost scored during a break away but was stopped in a 1-on-1 situation by Salák.

At 15:44 one of the rare Swedish attacks led to another goal for them. Mattias Ekholm barely kept the puck inside the Czech third at the blue line and gave it to Nicklas Danielsson whose cross-pass found Simon Hjalmarsson on the left circle from where he beat Salák with a precise deflection!

In the middle period it was more or less the same picture. The Czechs tried everything to cut their two-goal deficit while the Swedes were dangerous during counter attacks. Both sides hit the goal post and the game could have gone either way. This was especially a result of a lack of discipline by the favourites from Sweden who took a total of five penalties in short time.

At the begin of the third period Gustav Nyquist had a beautiful goal on his stick after deking out a total of three opponents but after skating around goalie Salák couldn't make it pats his glove hand! Shortly afterwards a Czech defender almost scored an own goal when deflecting a left wing attempt by Dennis Rasmussen. The first 10 minutes of the third period were the best stage of the hockey game for Sweden and they were rewarded for it. Mikael Backlund ended a fast 2-on-2 rush with a precise shot from the left wing into the left bottom corner - it didn't look unstoppable - after receiving a pass to the blue line by team mate Erik Gustafsson.

In the last minutes the task seemed more and more unlikely for the Czech Republic which opened a series of chances for Swedes. The best of them had Mikael Backlund, Nicklas Danielsson and Oscar Moller who all were stopped from short distance.

In the end a stellar 28 save performance not only gained Swedish goalie Anders Nilsson the award as player of the game for his team - on the other side Jiri Novotny was selected as best player of the Czechs - but also the bronze medal for his team at the 2014 IIHF World Championship in Minsk! 

Enjoying the national anthem.
Photo: Roman Kucera

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