In front of an almost sold-out arena, Sweden took its third straight victory in the JVM. This time against Switzerland.
It took just under seven minutes before Tom Willander broke the deadlock with a shot to the crossbar on the power play, a move that would prove to be the way forward in the game. Watch it in the player above.
Although it was Sweden who went into the break with a 3–1 lead, it was Switzerland who led the shot statistics (11–5). The team seemed to follow the motto of shooting as much as possible, regardless of the situation. However, Melker Thelin was on his toes.
– We had quite a hard time at the beginning but we were efficient, then we score a lot of goals in the power play, it’s good to get it started properly too, says Felix Unger Sörum.
Match-winning power play
It was the play in numerical superiority that was the match-winner for Sweden – out of a total of nine power plays, Sweden scored in four of them. In the second period, a goal also came a second after Switzerland had reached full strength.
In the second period, Sweden showed why they are tipped to be there and fight for the medals in the championship. The picture of the match became increasingly blue-yellow and even though it stopped at two goals in the period, the game was all the more impressive.
– We stepped up quite significantly in the second period, I think we can take that with us. We play to our strengths, that’s how we want to play, says Axel Sandin Pellikka to SVT Sport.
Nerve in third
In the third, the Swiss seemed to have learned from the previous two periods. Three power play goals from the Swiss side meant that Sweden’s victory went from crushing to the more expected 7–5.
– It felt like it was box play and power play the whole time, says Felix Unger Sörum, and Sandin Pellikka agrees:
– It is chaos, there are expulsions left and right. We have to file a little on that and be more disciplined, he says.
See all the goals in the player below.