Canada's Olympic medal hopes in men's hockey dashed by Sweden
Sweden has squashed Canada’s hopes for an Olympic medal in men’s hockey.
Lucas Wallmark scored 10:15 into the third period to help Sweden win a 2-0 shutout against Canada in quarterfinal action in men’s ice hockey at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
The loss eliminates Canada from medal contention.
“There was a lot of adversity, but every team had to go through that,” coach Claude Julien said, according to Hockey Canada. “At the end of the day, our group was pretty resilient. They never got rattled or frustrated, they just rolled with the punches. We came [to Beijing] with a great group of players that combined youth and veterans, and everyone seemed to come together so quickly. As a coach, I just wish our team would have been rewarded with something better than what we are left with.”
Sweden will advance to play Russia, formally the Russian Olympic Committee, in a semifinal matchup with a berth in the gold medal game on the line. Slovakia, who upset the United States in its quarterfinal, will play Finland in the other semifinal.Ā
Canada’s women’s ice hockey team will play for gold against the United States for a fourth straight Olympics.Ā
Canada dropped the contest to Sweden despite some strong play between the pipes from goaltender Matt Tompkins.
Tompkins kept Sweden off the board early, making a save in tight on Mathias Brome just 11 seconds into the game to keep Canada tied 0-0.Ā
He did the same in the second period.
Tompkins flashed a right pad on a backdoor play to Pontus Holmberg midway through the middle frames, and he made a blocker save on former Edmonton Oilers forward Anton Lander’s partial break a minute later to keep the game goalless.Ā
He entered the game with a share of the tournament lead in goals-against average (1.00) and a save percentage (.963) in two appearances.
The icebreaker came 10:15 into the third period. Wallmark’s shot deflected off the stick of Canada defenceman Tyler Wotherspoon and behind Tompkins to put Sweden up 1-0. The goal was Wallmark’s tournament-leading fifth marker.
Sweden strikes first šØ
Sweden scores halfway through the third and they lead Canada 1-0 in this quarter-final
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The goal came with Sweden outshooting Canada 6-1 in the third after holding an 18-17 edge in pucks on net through 40 minutes.
Lander scored into an empty net with 1:50 remaining for the 2-0 final.
“Consistency is always one of those things that you strive for in a tournament like this,” captain Eric Staal said, per Hockey Canada. “We had some moments in all our games that were better than others, and maybe at times we didn’t have the amount of consistency that we would have liked. Our team competed hard and there were a lot of moments where we were really solid. Tonight was just one of those games where we knew that one or two plays could make the difference, and we had chances that we came close to capitalizing on. Unfortunately, it didn’t go our way.”
Tompkins finished with 24 saves on 25 shots. Sweden goalie Lars Johansson stopped all 20 shots faced.
The gold-medal game is slated for 11:10 pm ET/8:10 pm ET on Saturday at the National Indoor Stadium.
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