Shaky Swedes beat Belarus

Say Belarus and all Swedish hockey fans will think about the quarter final loss in the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002. Today those memory's came alive again when a shaky Swedish side struggled to beat Belarus.

Belarus took the lead at 17:34 after a goal by Konstantin Koltsov who beat Jhonas Enroth with a low shot. Enroth clearly disturbed by one of his own defenders. Even if Sweden had most of the puck control before the goal it was not an unfair goal as Belarus had created better chances than Sweden.

After a shaky first period Sweden came out much stronger in the second period and got the equalizer 5:40 into the period after a strange situation. A shot by Oscar Lindberg seemed to hit the post. 15 seconds later the situation was reviewed and what noone really saw on the first situation was that the puck had crossed the goalline and an unexpected tying goal for Sweden was a fact.

But the goal didn't Sweden the boost you could expect and instead Sweden had a lot of problems giving away chances for quick counter attacks for Belarus forcing Sweden to take penalties. There seem to a lot of nerves in the Swedish team who is under pressure playing at home ice.

"It's hard but we have to play better", Sweden's Loui Eriksson said. And about power play he commented "It doesn't feel good at all. We had many chances." But added "The most important was that we won."

After some chances at both ends but with good goalies keeping the number Sweden finally broke the deadlock and pleased the home crowd by taking the lead with 8:24 left to play. Sweden won a face off and Fredrik Pettersson fired home a great shot that found the upper corner.

Jhonas Enroth made several good saves but he was calm. "It was quite easy today" he said but added "it was almost only counter attacks and power plays so it was a bit scary".

After that goal Sweden was in full control and finally won the game 2-1. "It was a win. Not more than that", as Martin Thörnberg said after the game.

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