Sweden is semifinal bound at the 2015 IIHF World Junior Championship after a 6-3 win over Finland, who beat the Swedes in the gold medal game last year.
Russia is up next, on Sunday. Sweden already beat the Russians 3-2 in the preliminary round.
Post-game, Sportsnet caught up with Swedish captain Jacob de la Rose, a Montreal Canadiens prospect, and Vancouver Canucks prospect, defenceman Gustav Forsling.
Both sported smiles, backwards Sweden ball caps, shorts, runners and their Team Sweden jerseys.
Sportsnet: Congratulations on the win.
De la Rose: It was really nice. It’s a big game for us, and we wanted to beat the Fins, so we’re really happy.
Forsling: We did a great game. The first was tight. They scored one goal, then we came back. It was nice to win this game. It was tight all the way, so it was good.
SN: Gustav, you scored first for Sweden to tie it up 1-1. What’s it like to score a goal here, with this kind of atmosphere?
Forsling: It’s awesome. So [many] people in the arena. It’s a nice feeling to score a goal like that.
SN: You’re leading all defencemen in points in this tournament. What’s been working for you?
Forsling: I think it’s our special teams, power play. We work really good. I’ve [scored] most of my goals in special teams…[William] Nylander sets me up really good.
SN: Did you hear who you’re playing next?
De la Rose: I heard Russia beat the U.S. Someone said it in the locker room.
SN: What do you have to do to earn a chance to play for gold?
De la Rose: It’s going to be a really tough game. We know they’re a good team so we just got to keep playing as a team. We’re on a really nice winning streak so we’ve got to keep playing good and keep using our power play and playing good on our PK, too. We made a few mistakes out there; we have to make fewer mistakes.
SN: You led 3-1 and then Finland tied it back up. It was close for a while there.
De la Rose: I think we started to back off after we scored our third goal, and we let them back into the game, and that was stupid. The coach didn’t tell us to do that, it was the players, we backed off. But we had a really good power play today and we keep scoring goals there. We had that four-minute penalty that we killed off as well. Our PK has been awesome the whole tournament. We have to keep that going against Russia.
SN: What’s the feeling like in the room after a win like that?
Forsling: Some fun stuff, guys dancing and all that. It’s a good feeling when you win like this.
SN: What have you been up to on your days off?
Forsling: Oh, just relaxing. Watching television, playing some poker.
SN: What’s the best part about playing in this tournament?
Forsling: It’s so big. Everything. You play in an arena like this, it’s unbelievable. That’s the fun part.