Swedes dominate on last tourney before home WJC

10 Nov 2013 | Igor Petrov

Team Sweden played a good 4 nations Cup in Russia this weekend, home team stayed second, Finns with two SO wins placed third, Czech with one point are at the bottom.

The teams came to the ice in Novogorsk in one of the best possible rosters except the kids playing in NHL or CHL. Sweden performed well in the first two game against Czech Republic (3:1) and Russia (4:2), where they got a quick 3-goal lead and then tried to play in their own pace, but Finns with a new head coach for this season, Karri Kivi, found the way how to play against them managing to win 3:2 after shootout. But Swedish head coach Rikard Gronborg told after the game that the main reason why this game wasn't the same as first is "emotions", cause Sweden had a late game the day before the game against Finland and the guys didn't sleep well. Sweden played with great chemistry, the leading players have been Andreas Johnson, Alexander Wennberg, Jacob de la Rose.

Team Russia battles hard in first game against Finland (3:2) and then fall to Sweden where they can't anticipate anything to them. In the last game against Czech Republic (6:1), they showed some sort of hockey high-class skill moves, especially Alexander Barabanov and Eduard Gimatov who seemed to be one of the main creation centers for the team.

Finland showed a very interesting game and only "second Datsyuk" Teravainen was on the center of attention all games, the good games also had Artturi Lehkonen, and not-drafted Juuso Ikonen who is key player for Finnish PP. Lost to Russia and two wins in SO over Czech Republic and Swedes is a good practice before the hot stage of World Cup hockey before Christmas time.

The Czech team was led by three youngsters Ondrej Kase, Jakub Vrana and David Pastrnak. Their moves keep them alive in the second game against Finland where Czech Republic managed to come back after a 1:3. When the game of all three kids didn't go well, the Czechs weren't able to offer anything to the opposition.

In Malmo three of the four participants of this weekend's tournament - Russia, Finland and Sweden - will face each other in one group and this tournament could be send a message to the other opponents.

Best players of the tournament:

Goalie – Marcus Hogberg (Sweden); Defenceman – Andrei Mironov (Russia); Forward – Filip Sandberg (Sweden); Scorer – Vyacheslav Osnovin 2+2 (Russia)