Comfortable Swedish win against Slovakia

31 Dec 2011 | Henrik Lundqvist

Slovakia could not keep up with the Swedes as well as Switzerland did. Sweden gets an easy 9-1 win.

Erik Thorell opened and closed the scoring when Sweden beat Slovakia 9-1 in the World Juniors. He also got an assist and was named best Swedish player of the game.

Sweden outshot Slovakia 55-15 and the only Slovak goal was a 1-1 tier by Marek Tvrdon in the middle of the first period.

The Swedish top goal scorer Max Friberg scored his sixth goal of the tournament for 2-1. Sebastian Collberg, just like Thorell had 2 goals and an assist. His first goal was scored at 4:15 of the second period on a beautiful play by Johan Larsson and Johan Sundström. Sundström then scored 4-1 in the end of the period.

"This was our best game of the tournament. We controlled the game and always knew where we had our opponents", says Sundström to Swehockey.

Period 3 was won 5-0 by the Swedes who didn't stop playing even if they had a big lead. Mika Zibanejad made it 5-1 after a couple of rebounds off the Slovak goalie. Rickard Rakell got a beautiful goal on an individual effort.

"I tried to pass to a defenseman but I couldn't see one so I turned around and then I don't know what happened", said Rakell to TV10.

Joakim Nordström made it 7-1 on a cool assist by Erik Thorell. Collberg scored his second goal on a 2-man advantage. Erik Thorell had a wide open net after a rebound for 9-1.

Sweden will play a group final against Russia tomorrow. Slovakia needs to beat Switzerland in the next game to avoid the relegation games.