Music: {allcanada} Swedes beat Canada in shootout

Friday, December 31, 2010

{allcanada} Swedes beat Canada in shootout

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Oscar Lindberg and Anton Lander scored in a shootout as Sweden defeated Canada 6-5 in the closing preliminary round game for both teams Friday at the world junior hockey championship.

The victory gave unbeaten Sweden a bye to the semifinals, while Canada will have to play in the quarter-finals on Sunday.

Neither Canada's Ryan Ellis nor Brayden Schenn were able to beat Robin Lehner in the shootout.

With the game tied 4-4 to start the third period, Canada got two quick power plays and Schenn was at the edge of the crease to bang in a rebound for his tournament-leading seventh goal at 3:22.

But goaltender Olivier Roy was on his knees early as Patrik Cehlin picked the top corner on a rush to tie the game at 11:43. That forced a scoreless five-minute overtime and then came the shootout.

The Swedes outshot Canada 41-34 and outplayed them for much of the first two periods, but were held in the game by some fine saves by Roy and a lucky bounce that produced the first of Curtis Hamilton's two goals.

Sean Couturier and Quinton Howden also scored for Canada.

Carl Klingberg, with two, Max Freiberg and Jesper Thornberg had Sweden's other goals.

Canada struck 58 seconds into the game when Couturier threw a pick toward the net and saw it go in off a defender, but Sweden tied it on a power play at 2:14 as Freiberg batted a rebound out of the air.

Klingberg walked out from the corner and beat Roy with a high shot through traffic at 14:55 but only 43 seconds later, Howden's long shot fooled Lehner. Canada went ahead with one second left in the period when Ryan Johansen's shot took a strange hop off the glass for Hamilton to put in from the doorstep.

The Swedes stormed out in the second as Klingberg scored on a rebound 54 seconds in and Thornberg saw his shot deflect over Roy at 2:44.

Schenn fed Hamilton on a short-handed two-on-one to tie it at 4:37.

Canada thought they had the go-ahead goal late in the period when Couturier's shot was trapped near the line by Lehner, but officials ruled no goal and did not call for a video review.

During the first intermission, Barry Epp of Cranbrook, B.C. failed to get the 15 goals he needed in shots from the far blue-line in the Chevrolet Shoot For A Million contest. Epp scored nine times and needed 15 for the cash. However, he and son Shame and friend Chris Kirwan got the 10 goals from the red-line they needed for each to win a Cruze sedan.

Notes -- Both teams were missing a key player to injury: Canada's Jaden Schwartz and Sweden's Gabriel Landeskog. . . Canadian winger Zack Kassian served the second of his two-game suspension for a hit to the head of a Czech player.