Champs starts in style

26 Dec 2012 | Fredrik Pålsson

Two early power play goal laid ground for a fairly easy Swedish victory against the Czech Republic in the third game of the U20 World Championship.

The Czechs started undisciplined and had four minor penalties in the first seven minutes, David Musil being responsible for three of them. Sweden capitalized on their power play chances and had a 2-0 lead already after 3:48.

First it was Sebastian Collberg who fired it home on five on three and on the following five on four power play Elias Lindholm tipped in a shot by Mikael Vikstrand for 2-0.

The start some what killed the morale of the Czech team and Sweden was the clearly better team for the rest of the game, especially in the second period when they had 17-6 in shots but only managed to score one goal, a short handed marker by Filip Sandberg.

"We started very badly," Czech coach Miroslav Prerost said after the game. "In the first three or four minutes, the goals scored by the Swedish team decided the game." Swedish head coach Roger Rönnberg was off course more pleased. "I liked the way we competed. I liked our PK, the way we were blocking shots, and the way we played without the puck, how we came back on the backcheck. It was good. Offensively, we can for sure still play better."

Filip Forsberg made it 4-0 in the third period while Lukas Sedlak spoiled the shutout for Joel Lassinatti with only six seconds left to play.

For Sweden it was probably a relief that they can play good on defense despite the heavy injury problems there with now also Hampus Lindholm out of the tournament, more bad news came there today when Rasmus Bengtsson picked up an injury today, but no news about how serious it was.

The Czechs will have to play much better if they're to have any chance against the Finns on Friday while Sweden has a game they should win, versus Switzerland.