Swedes win the thriller in shootout

Oliver Ekman-Larsson brought home the winner for Sweden in the shootout after the Czech Republic and Sweden played a thriller ending 5:5 after regulation.

The first day of the IIHF 2015 World Championship in Prague saw two high scoring games for a combined of  18 goals in just two games. After Canada had given a drubbin g to Latvia, shortly missing on Mike Smith's shutout, the Czechs opened the tournament in front of the home crowd with a tough loss in a thrilling finish.

Team Sweden had a better start to the game as Oliver Ekman-Larsson couldn't capitalize, but soon after the Swedes are going to score. Martin Erat tried to pass the puck to Ondrej Nemec who stopped playing to avoid to many men on the ice, Mattias Sjogren won't miss out on the given opportunity and finds Joel Lundqvist just in front of the net who sends one home to open the scoring at 3:23.

Staffan Kronwall capitalized on the powerplay at 7:30, while Erat was serving for hooking. Alexander Salak in the Czech net got completely screened which allowed for Kronwall to find the way to the net from the right corner.

Vladimir Sobotka had a huge opportunity for the hosts after a solo effort, though Jhonas Enroth was ready for that.

Jaromir Jagr got his 50th in the national team when he deflected a cannon from Jakub Nakladal off the blue line and the O2 Arena exploded for the first time.

If the Czech defense is their weak spot, the powerplay definitely was up to the task. Despite finishing 2 for 5 with the man up, at the beginning of the secon period they spent the whole two minutes on the powerplay inside the Swedish zone, enough for Pär Mårts to call a timeout at 26:26.

It was goal for goal from then on. First Victor Rask tucked one in at 34:34, before Tomas Hertl scored at the start of the third period. A minute and a half later, at 44:08 Joakim Lindström restores the two-goal lead with the score 4:2 in favour of the Scandinavians.

The Czechs obviously got mad about that. Not in their house it's not happening. The sell-out crowd helped a lot cheering on their team and pushing them forward. David Simon, Roman Cervenka and Martin Zatovic scored three times in a span of 5:19 to make the fall almost fall off as the crowd went wild! For a moment it seemed the Czechs are on the way to win it and do it with style.

The problem was Mattias Sjögren wouldn't agree with it and got his second point in the game off a goal in the last minute of regulation.

As overtime was scoreless, but with a great opportunity on each side, the game went to shootout. Elias Lindholm and Oliver Ekman-Larsson scoring for Sweden, Jakub Voracek being the only accurate Czech.

The Czech Republic will seek reconciliation tomorrow against Latvia, while Sweden get a day off.

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