Filip Forsberg and Juuse Saros with the Nashville Predators. © Jeff Le-Imagn ImagesIt’s never dull when Sweden takes on Finland. On Tuesday at the IIHF World Championship in front of their home fans in Stockholm, the Swedes were dominant, outshooting the Finns 41-19 and controlling the game in terms of possession and zone time.
“I think this was by far our best game,” Filip Forsberg said after the game as reported by HockeyNews.se. “I don't know what the zone time was, but we probably had 60-70 percent of the time in the attacking zone. We’ll take that with us.”
In the end, however, Sweden had to hang on to win 2-1, thanks in large part due to the play of Finnish goaltender Juuse Saros, who is Forsberg’s teammate with the Nashville Predators. Forsberg was asked if he thought, given the wide edge in play, whether his team should have scored another goal or two.
“Yes, absolutely, but they had one of the best goalies in the world on the other side,” Forsberg said about Saros. “He was so good. He’s really the only reason it was still a game after two periods.
“He was standing on his head in goal.”
The score was 2-0 after 40 minutes and the shots were 33-9. Then the Finns came with a push in the third period, which was to be expected, and scored once.
“Then it’s quite tight and you never know,” said Forsberg. “A random puck goes in and suddenly, it’s a game. You have to give credit to Juuse and to Finland for fighting on. A little more payoff (on our chances) and this game would have been over a little earlier.”
The Finnish goal with just under seven minutes remaining was a strange play that Forsberg was in the middle of. A quck whistle while the puck was still loose appeared to negate it, and a couple of Finnish players quickly charged towards the nearest referee to argue. However, Forsberg quickly intercepted Harri Pesonen and Eemil Erholtz, allowing the referee to escape.
“Yes, they were going to argue with the referee, so you have to protect them sometimes,” he said. “They do a good job out there so you gotta be there and ‘police’ a little sometimes.”
After a review, the goal was counted but it’s the only one Finland got.
