Sweden Stays Perfect With Win over Czech Republic

06 May 2018Steven Ellis»

Sweden is the second team to hold a perfect record at the 2018 World Hockey Championships in Denmark, beating the Czech Republic in a close contest on Sunday afternoon.

Games involving these two countries are always worth watching, especially given their rivalry from playing multiple Euro Hockey Tour games against each other during the year. Sweden got the first goal of the game on just their second shot after Mattias Janmark made a nice pass to Rickard Rakell to the right of the Czech net. Rakell used his shot that generated 35 goals for the Anaheim Ducks this year and blew the puck past David Rittich's glove hand, giving Sweden the 1-0 lead at 4:49.

Three minutes later, Sweden would capitalize on the power play. Mattias Janmark would get credit for the goal after tapping in the puck in a scramble in front, punching the puck past Rittich after Rakell touched it just a second prior to make it 2-0 at 7:13.

The game would get rather physical in the second period, and the Czechs would make the Swedes pay for it. With two players in yellow in the box, Filip Hronek scored on a knuckle-puck shot from the point, with the disk soaring over Magnus Hellberg's left arm and in to make it 2-1 at 33:10 in the battle.

The Swedes would regain their two-goal advantage at 3:11 in the third period. Mika Zibanejad, who always brings tremendous skill to the Swedish national team, made it 3-1 after roofing a beautiful backhand shot over Rittich, giving the Swedes the eventual victory.

The Czechs would score one late in the game to bring themselves within one. Tomas Hypa of the Vegas Golden Knights would make it 3-2 with a nice shot on the power play, putting his country within a goal with under five minutes left to play. Unfortunately for the team in red, the goal wouldn't spark a comeback as the Swedes would hold on for the eventual 3-2 victory to improve to 2-0 in Denmark.

Sweden will have a quick turnaround before their next game, a 20:15 local time battle against France on Monday. The Czechs will meet up with Switzerland 24 hours later, a game that could decide a quarterfinal spot down the line.

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