United States beats Finland, Canada gets past Sweden in OT

18 May 2014 | Andreas Reiner (Photo: Roman Kucera)

As the preliminary round is about to come to an end, Canadians beat the reigning world champion Sweden in a tight game while the USA finished off Finland.

The States didn't fool around as Brock Nelson beat Pekka Rinne just 19 seconds into the game. For almost 46 minutes no goals were added to the scoreboard when Tyler Johnson, assisted by Craig Smith and Seth Jones scored the second goal for the States.

If the Finns wanted a chance of turning the game around, they had to react fast and when Tuukka Mäntylä scored the first goal for his team the hope returned in the 57th minute. But Johnson with his second goal on the empty net with just 46 seconds remaining sent the Finns under the cold shower. Finland now needs to trust other results to be able to reach the quarter finals.

In the second game of the afternoon between Canada and Sweden, the Scandinavians had the better start when Joakim Lindström scored on Ben Scrivens in the 14th minute. It got even better for the Tre Kronor Team when Linus Klasen assisted by Mattias Ekholm and Gustav Nyquist scored the second goal of the evening just a minute after the second period had started.

Lindström and Möller cooperated for 1-0.

The Canadians who had played rather reserved now increased the pressure and just two minutes later Brayden Schenn on an assist by Jonathan Huberdeau got the first goal for the North Americans. 28 minutes were played and Kevin Bieksa scored the game tying goal on a powerplay situation.

The last period remained goalless and so an overtime had to decide the winner. Just after halftime of the 5 minute overtime Ryan Ellis scored on goalie Anders Nilsson to secure 2 points for the Canadians who have now taken over the Lead in Group A.