Pettersson’s shootout goal takes Sweden to semi final

What a drama it was. Sweden finally showed some confidence and managed to beat Canada after a dramatic penalty shootout where Fredrik Pettersson scored the winner with a powerful slapshot in the fourth round of the shootout.

Pettersson celebrating his goal. Photo: Michal Eger

After an close and even start Sweden got the first great just after the halfway mark when Landeskog and Pettersson came two on one. Landeskog gave the puck to Pettersson who passed it back but Landeskog failed to connect on the return and missed it.

At the end of the period Eric Staal went to the ice with a lot of pain after a collision with Alexander Edler. Staal went out with a knee injury and Edler was sent out with a game misconduct for kneeing. A hard blow for Sweden to lose their best defender so early in the game leaving five defenders playing the rest of the game.

Staal had a serious injury. Photo: Michal Eger

"It's hard to see him go down", PK Subban said about losing his captain to injury. About the game he said "when you go to a shootout it's 50-50. We had a number of chances and worked hard but it didn't bounce our way".

Canada of course took over the momentum with the power play but after killing almost three minutes the Swedes were awarded with a Canadian penalty and the five minute power play seemed to be early but Canada got a few seconds on power play at the start of the second and that was all what Canada needed when Steven Stamkos deflected a shot from Stephane Robidas' shot from the blueline leaving Enroth with no chance at 0:45.

Stamkos later had great chance of extending the lead when he was all clear on a breakaway after a terrible Swedish line change but Jhonas Enroth came up with a vital save. Canada continued to be the better team but Sweden worked hard and had some great goaltending by Enroth and Canada only managed to beat him again when the buzzer for the second period already had gone.

Enroth made another good game in goal for Sweden. Photo: Michal Eger

Sweden came out a bit better in the third and when they got their first power play of the game after a puck out Nicklas Danielsson fired home 1-1 from the blueline and the Globe exploded in joy. And a few minutes later Sweden got their second power play game and once again from the same position Nicklas Danielsson found the net again scoring two goals within five minutes after being on a slump for the whole tournament.

"It was a relief to finally score at the power play. Good traffic in front", Loui Eriksson said. "In the third we played really well".

But the lead didn't stood for long as Claude Giroux took revenge for being in the box on 2-1 tied it with a low shot after some mistakes by the Swedes in their own zone. That was the last goal of regular time even if Canada had some pressure at the end.

A 10 minute sudden death overtime playing four on four followed were it became a drama for the Swedish goalies when Enroth was forced to be replaced by Markström after going to the bench, during a few nervous minutes the cold Markström came up with some saves. With a lot of space on the ice the teams exchanged some chances but no goals were scored and the penalty shootout decided the game.

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