Home teams improved to 6-0 in pre-tournament action at the World Cup of Hockey Saturday as Sweden dropped Finland 6-3 at the Scandinavium in Gothenburg — the second game in a home-and-home between the rival nations.
Their first encounter was a close contest that required overtime, but the second was a one-sided affair in favour of the Swedes.
Both teams will now head over to North America — Washington, D.C. in particular — with Finland playing the United States Tuesday and Sweden playing Team Europe Wednesday at the Verizon Center in their final games before the real tournament begins.
Here are some takeaways from Saturday’s game…
Canucks connection clicks
Vancouver Canucks fans will be paying close attention to Team Sweden during the World Cup and they must have liked what they saw Saturday from the line of Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin and free agent acquisition Loui Eriksson.
The trio has played together at previous international tournaments and their chemistry is apparent. Midway through the first period, as Finland found itself in some penalty trouble, Henrik floated a beautiful saucer pass to Eriksson who beat his former Bruins teammate Tuukka Rask.
Later in the period, on yet another power play, Henrik sent the puck to Daniel behind the Finnish net and he found Eriksson – who had spun off his man in the slot – before firing a one-timer past Rask for his second of the game.
“It’s their hockey sense (the Sedins) and their awareness on the ice that really stands out to me,” Team Sweden advisor Daniel Alfredsson told Sportsnet earlier this year when the initial rosters were announced. “Not just between themselves but between the other forward on their line.”
We certainly saw that on Eriksson’s second goal.
This line should be great for Sweden during the World Cup this month and there’s no reason why the same can’t be true when the three forwards put on their Canucks sweaters next month.
Sweden gets off to a better start
The Swedish coaching staff and management didn’t like how the team came out of the gate Thursday in Finland.
“We had a bit of a slow start. It was the first game for these guys in a long time and they didn’t get the jump that the Finns had,” team advisor Nicklas Lidstrom told Sportsnet in a phone conversation Friday. “The Finns came out very strong and we gained momentum as the game went along and we started playing better and better.”
Sweden carried the momentum it had generated in the second half of their tournament opener and were the stronger team early in Saturday’s game. Sweden was up 3-0 at one point and dictated the pace for the majority of the 60 minutes. By the time Finland started generating scoring chances the game was mostly out of reach.
Swedish blue-line looks predictably strong
Sweden’s back end is perhaps the best in the tournament. Forward Rickard Rakell missed the game due to an illness and Mattias Ekholm slid into the lineup so we got to see all seven Swedish defencemen do their thing.
Apart from one misstep late in the third when Erik Karlsson of all people allowed Erik Haula to slip behind him on Finland’s third goal, the group had a strong outing overall.
Sweden outshot Finland 29-14 and had 11 blocked shots. Credit the forward group for contributing in the defensive zone — the Swedes do after all boast a glut of talented two-way forwards — but it all starts with the fleet-of-foot men on the blue-line.
“They’re all great skaters,” Lidstrom said. “They’re all able to read the play and get up in the play and help on offence but just the way they’re able to move out there makes them such a strong group. They’re really responsible on the back end too so I really like the back end that we have.”
That’s high praise coming from a seven-time Norris Trophy winner.
If their blue-line stays healthy, it will be the driving force of any success Sweden has in this tournament.
Not many Scandinavian scuffles
A major storyline early in pre-tournament action has been how rough the gameplay has been. Ryan Kesler and T.J. Oshie had questionable hits on Shea Weber and Logan Couture, respectively, in a physical USA-Canada game Friday night. Then things got heated between the Russians and Czechs Saturday when Milan Michalek appeared to kick goalie Semyon Varlamov.
The Finns and Swedes on the other hand kept it clean. Both teams were undisciplined at times, sure, but save for some sparse pushing and shoving it was a tame affair, which is what you’d expect in pre-tournament contests.
Finland shouldn’t be discouraged
No, the Finns won’t like the final score. No, you’re not going to win many games when your opponent more than doubles you in shots on goal. No, it can’t afford to take that many penalties. However, if we look at the silver lining from a Finnish perspective there’s a lot to build off.
First of all, Finland was dominant in the face-off circle, winning 63 per cent of the draws. Its power play also connected on two of five opportunities and its only even-strength goal occurred just seconds after a man advantage had expired.
Rasmus Ristolainen, a Finnish hero at the 2014 world juniors, is emerging as a leader on the blue-line. He had a goal and an assist and was second on the team in ice time — he probably would have led in ice time were it not for the two penalties he took. Also, Leo Komarov looks like he’s going to be a pest all tournament. He broke up a chance on a short-handed 2-on-1 impressively late in the second period but it’s his ability to get under the skin of opposing players that could end up paying dividends. So, not the result they wanted but there’s still plenty of reason to be optimistic about Finland’s chances in 2016.
