An emptiness. It’s not a 7-3 game, says Swedish star defender Victor Hedman to Viaplay after the loss.
But the Czech victory was also controversial when the referees missed a nasty elbow to the head by Jan Rutta on Swedish center Isac Lundeström in a packed O2 Arena.
It was a foul that could have been assessed as a match penalty if any of the four referees had seen it.
The Czechs then led 4–2.
Lundeström was left lying on the ice and was then taken out to the Swedish changing room. But after a while, the Anaheim forward returned to play.
“Gets shit bounces”
Instead of the Swedish powerplay came 5–2, the third Czech goal in the space of 2.58.
After that, goalkeeper Filip Gustavsson, who led the goalkeeper league in the World Cup, was replaced by Philadelphia’s Samuel Ersson.
The Czech goal streak began with Rasmus Dahlin hitting the puck on the referee, which gave two Czech players an open position until 3–2 through Ondrej Kase.
They get crappy bounces, Dahlin told Viaplay during the break after two periods.
Martin Necas shot 4-2 straight away and Dominik Kubalik 5-2 as the Czechs came three against one in a quick counterattack.
A rarely-seen beating by a Swedish team with perhaps the sharpest back side in the WC of all time with Erik Karlsson, Victor Hedman and Dahlin.
New blue-yellow hope
The Swedes were only able to stop the bleeding when Joel Eriksson Ek reduced the score to 3–5 in numerical superiority after 15:30 of the second period.
I think we are traveling pretty well. We score 5-3 and have good pressure. I’m still proud of the boys. We pushed on until the end, but weren’t good enough, says Victor Hedman.
By then, Sweden had led twice in the first period after goals by Marcus Johansson (1–0) and Marcus Pettersson (2–1).
But the Czechs equalized twice.
In the last period, the Swedes tried to get closer and got an early chance in the power play.
But the payoff in numerical superiority has not been good enough during the championship and just two seconds after the chance ran out in the sand, Lukas Sedlak scored 6-3 from a free position.
He then increased to 7–3.
Hedman: Not played out
It’s one thing to feel that you’ve been played out, but that’s absolutely not the case, says Hedman.
The Czech Republic has not played in a World Cup final since 2010 when the team became world champions.
They (Czech Republic) are very, very good, but it’s hard to swallow. You sound a bit selfish, I think we are a better team, but it wasn’t enough today, says Victor Hedman.
For Sweden, which played its first World Cup semi-final since 2018, the bronze medal match awaits on Sunday against the loser of the other semi-final between Canada and Switzerland.