After initial difficulties, Sweden safely slides into second

Putting Sweden up permanently with the 3-2 go-ahead goal, his second of the game, Forsberg took a pass from Oliver Ekman-Larsson and made his way alone down the right wing side, whipping one past Cristobal Huet to the upper right side corner to kick off the 3rd period. That opened the flood gates as Ekman-Larsson pumped another wrist shot past Huet only a few minutes later to give Sweden a commanding lead, from which they’d never look back.

All things considered for France, it was a monstrous task heading into the game against Sweden, knowing that it somehow needed to generate as many points as possible today against Sweden and then tomorrow against Latvia – certainly no less than three – in order to avoid relegation. Hoping that Austria will be without a shot tomorrow against Canada, the French have their fate in their hands with a possible six points on the table. Things as they were to start the game, Sweden was tied for second in the group, having won the head-to-head against the Czechs.

And things went real well for the first half of the first period, as the French not only generated a few more opportunities than the average fan would expect, but also managed to keep a heavily attacking Sweden off the board. Numerous shots were blocked and deflected, but it was mostly 39 year old Cristobal Huet who was to thank for keeping the Swedes from scoring. Eating and deflecting away a number of pucks, he was establishing himself as what might be the evening’s hero. 

With nine minutes to go in the 1st, the heroics came to an end and Swedish and New Jersey Devils forward Jacob Josefson, number 16, pounced on and banged in the rebound of a point shot from Oscar Klefbom, number 84, giving Sweden the lead that had seemed like a long time coming.

France gained a power play on a tripping call just moments later, but couldn’t get anything really going, again showing why they’ve only got an 11.8% success rate on the power play in the tournament to date. This was followed by a Swedish power play that France was able to kill off successfully. 

Nonetheless, the Swedes thwarted just about any attempts to score that France could generate while putting on the pressure in the other end, ending the period having outshot the French 14-6.

French hopes came back to life when they managed a power play goal against Sweden just 34 seconds into the 2nd period. Righty shooting Damien Fleury, who ironically plays for Djurgarden in Sweden, hammered in a one-time shot from the left faceoff circle, with Antoine Roussel setting a screen in front of Swedish netminder Jonas Enroth.

This brought the team life, because their next big chance came at the 17:08 mark of the 2nd period when a 4-on-3 attack saw a French skater kick the puck towards the goal, which bounced off the post and landed in a goal-crease crowd. Again it was Fleury who pounced on the puck, banging it in to give France a very unlikely 2-1 lead.

With a crowd that apparently loves an underdog, every attack the French could muster earned a wave of cheers. So too did a huge Huet save on a Loui Eriksson breakaway, which led to a scrum of bodies around the French goal.

Loui Eriksson and Jonathan Janil. Photo: Stanislav Souček

Things continued to go well for the bleu, blanc et rouge until a bit of a ghost tripping call came with just under 6 minutes to play in the period. Moments later, Forsberg appeared to have put a wrist shot past Huet shortly after a face-off, but the goal was reviewed. Then given.

Another Swedish power play couldn’t be made use of and the period ended with the 2-2 tie.

After the Swedes quickly gained the 4-2 lead, things settled down and it was the referees who made themselves more noticeable than anything else. For example, France was given a too many men on the ice penalty right in front of their bench as they were changing lines, but the player going onto the ice hadn’t touched the puck that was clearly located within the understood changing zone.

As the game dwindled down, a few strong opportunities to score in the last few seconds were gained by France, one of which led to some rough stuff and even some fisticuffs as the period concluded. Other than excitement and frustration, it did little more than mark the end of the game.

France will finish off tournament play in just few hours against Latvia. The loser of that game will be relegated. The two nations are no strangers to the situation.

For Sweden, a second place finish is in their cards and they’ll wait to see who they’ll be facing off against in the quarterfinals.

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