Sweden rally to avoid Canada in semis

01 Jan 2012 | Roman Solovyev

In the last game of the group stage Sweden rally from a 3-goal deficit to beat Russia in overtime.

The Russian team took a quick 2-goal lead early in the first period. Firstly Nail Yakupov robbed Sweden's defense at the blue line in the attacking zone and fed up a pass to Ignat Zemchenko who opened the scoring at 2:09. 7 seconds later the first line of the Russian team scored the second goal after a won faceoff; Yaroslav Kosov with a high wrist shot made it 2-0.

It's obvious that Vasilevsky's not conceding goals series came to an end. Mika Zibabejad scored a first goal on Andrei Vasilevsky after his leg found Rickard Rakell's shot from the board. But after reviewing this goal was canceled due to leg-play.

In the middle of the period Ivan Telegin ran into a fast counter-attack and scored a shorthanded goal to end the first period with a 3-0 score.

Russia gave the possession to the Sweden players in the second, preferred play only at counter-attacks. Andrei Vasilevsky made a great work this night; after the second period he stopped during all tournament more than 100 shots.

Tendencies of the second continued in the third when Sweden still has an advantage, plays a lot in power-play. With 16:43 remaining in the third Oskar Klefbom scored a first goal against Vasilevsky in this tournament with a high snap shot. Rakell came into the zone made a shot, which was resisted by Vasilevsky, but the puck bounced off Zakhar Arzamastsev's skate and jumped to the net at 52:19.

Yevgeny Kuznetsov got a great pass, came into the zone but couldn't lift the puck and made a dot in this game when there were only two minutes to play.

Sweden tied the game with a blue line shot from Jonas Brodin and Max Friberg who redirected the puck into the net at 59:20.

In the overtime Joakim Nordstrom led his team to a great victory over team Russia. It was another redirecting the puck and may be the lonely mistake by the young goalie, which cost so much for team Russia. They will play in quarters with Czech and a chance to have Canada in semis.

Sweden gets a by to the semi final where they will meet the winner of Finland and Slovakia.