EHT: Sweden and Finland win on the road

17 Dec 2015 | Henrik Lundqvist

When Channel One Cup, a Euro Hockey Tour tournament, started today Sweden beat Russia in Moscow and Finland beat Czech Republic in Prague.

The Swedes are not used to winning on Moscow but this time they got away with a clear 4-1 win even if Russia scored the first goal. The first period was scoreless even if Russia scored a goal just after the buzzer and the referees needed a word with the video referee before they could rule it out. The home team instead got the lead a minute into the second period when Maxim Chudinov beat one of the game's two CSKA goalies. Viktor Fasth guarded the Swedish net and his team-mate Ilya Sorokin the Russian. Sorokin was first beaten at 27 minutes when André Petersson tied it on a Swedish 2-man-advantage. Jonas Ahnelöv is not used to score a lot of goals but he gave Sweden the lead a couple of minutes later with his third goal ever for the national team. At 33:15 John Norman scored his first goal ever for Tre Kronor and the two-goal lead would stand until 24 seconds before the end of the game when Oscar Möller's empty net goal for 4-1 just crossed the line.

Harri Säteri played his third game for Team Finland and earned his first shutout when he made 28 saves against Czech Republic in Prague. Dominik Furch in the Czech net kept it clean until 32:46 when Olli Palola made it 1-0. Markus Nutivaara scored 2-0 early in the third period. The Czechs pulled Furch from the net at 57:15 but Jona Enlund only needed 12 seconds to make it 3-0.

Tomorrow is a day off. On Saturday Finland play Russia and then Sweden face Czech Republic. All games of the tournament except for Czech Republic-Finland are played in the new VTB Ice Palace Arena in Moscow.