If they had won at full time, the Women’s Crowns would have won the group and got Finland or Switzerland into the quarter-finals.
Difficult, but not impossible.
Now it will be the Czech Republic that gets that chance instead.
Sweden has never won in 15 championship matches against Canada. The last meeting, the quarter-final in the Olympics in February, ended with a terrible 0-11.
Against the USA, Sweden has won once in 13 attempts – the classic semi-final win in the 2006 Turin Olympics after penalties.
It was the inefficiency that brought down Sweden in a tight and tough battle against the Czech Republic with a lot of emotions.
Burnt free positions
There was no lack of chances – but the goals were not forthcoming. An example of the Swedish difficulty in scoring goals is that only three Swedish forwards have received dividends so far. Then the goal queen Hanna Olsson, four complete hits, was not given any space against a Czech Republic with many SDHL acquaintances.
The women’s crowns started briskly, played intensely and creatively and created several good chances in the first ten minutes of the match.
It gave two free positions – which, however, were burned. First through Josefin Bouveng, Brynäs’ previous goal queen who moves to college in the USA, but then saved Klara Peslarova, the goalkeeper who moved to Brynäs from Modo.
Jenny Antonsson also got a free position a few minutes later, but missed the target.
The Swedes shut down goal-loving Czech Republic, who had scored 18 goals in their first three games, and won the shootout in the first period 9-3.
Hidden Söderberg
However, the Czech Republic came back and had a strong period around the middle of the game. Then came the lead goal. Vendula Pribylova, who changed AIK for Modo, shot 1-0 after 9.11 of the second period behind an obscured Emma Söderberg.
The Swedes then got into a good position when the Czech Republic suffered the first expulsion of the match – but could not take advantage of it.
Instead, the uphill became even steeper when Natalie Mlynkova spot-kicked 2-0 over the shoulder of Emma Söderberg at the first post after 9.40 of the third period.
Union captain Ulf Lundberg responded to the odd move of picking out the goalkeeper with just over eight minutes remaining and investing in an extra outfield player.
Then Klara Hymlarova scored 3-0 in the empty Swedish box.