After a dominant 5-0 win over Slovakia in their opening game of the 2025 IIHF World Championship, the Swedes had more trouble with their second game against Austria, needing a late comeback to win 4-2. Swedish media didn’t seem impressed with the team’s performance in the second game, but when asked about it Filip Forsberg was full of praise for the Austrian team.

“Austria was better than Slovakia,” Forsberg told the media after the game, as reported by HockeyNews.se. “They made it difficult for us. Their goalie stood on his head there for a while. As long as it was a tight game, they can play a little on their counter-hockey. They didn’t open up much and you have to give them credit for that. They played well, but I think we’re strong enough that we were able to continue playing our game.”

Austria put quite a scare into the Swedes. With the score tied 1-1 in the third period, Marco Kasper gave Austria the lead with 7:34 to play. With still almost three minutes remaining, coach Sam Hallam pulled goaltender Samuel Ersson for an extra attacker and the Swedes turned the game around quickly. First Jonas Brodin tied it with 2:19 to go and then just 12 seconds later, Mika Zibanejad gave Sweden the lead. Alexander Wennberg added a late empty-netter.

“Yes, it’s easy to get a little anxious maybe at the end, but I don’t think we were.” the Nashville Predators left winger said. “As soon as they scored the (2-1) goal, it was right back to focusing on (offense) and we actually played the rest of the game in their zone, and in the end it paid off.”

The Swedish media seemed to be down on their team for needing a late push to beat Austria, whom they thought Sweden should have beaten easily. Forsberg, it seems, wasn’t having any of that.

“You’re the ones who talk about it being an easy game, but there aren’t any of those in these tournaments anymore. You see that they have NHL players on their side too.

“You in the media can underestimate them as much as you want, but in our group we didn’t … You can talk [crap] about Austria as much as you want, but they’re good.”

Last year, of course, the Austrians fell just short of making the quarterfinals after beating Finland, losing in overtime to Canada (after scoring five goals in the third period to tie it) and also losing to silver-medalist Switzerland by one goal. This year’s Austrian team is similar in composition and, it seems, similar in attitude. Austria has no points but two close losses to Finland and Sweden.

And for all the worrying by Swedish media and fans, their team has won both games so far. After opening the tournament with back-to-back games, the Swedes have a day off on Sunday and then it’s back into the fire on Monday night against arch-rival Finland.

Marco Rossi after comeback vs Canada: “In 50 years, I’ll think back on that game” It was the biggest deficit in the history of the top division of the IIHF World Championship that a team has ever had and managed to take a point. Down 6-1 entering the third period, The Austrians scored five in the third period to force overtime, eventually losing 7-6. The tying goal with 49 seconds left in regulation time was scored by the team’s lone NHLer, Marco Rossi of the Minnesota Wild. He spoke about it afterward.