Ice Hockey IIHF World Championships 2017

[Agger 1,663]

Most likely the groups for next year will be:

 

Group A:

,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  

 

Group B:

 ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  

 

 

Meaning a switch between Denmark and France compared to the rankings. This is because I believe the second most important thing for the organizers (after Denmark in Herning and Sweden in Copenhagen) is having Russia in Copenhagen as some potential problems with some of their supporters will be easier to deal with in Copenhagen.

 

If that happens, I will surely try to secure a ticket to at least a match against Canada, Finland or Norway

[hckošice 14,899]

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WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

2017

 

 

 

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Knockout Round

 

Gold Medal Match
Central European Summer Time (GMT +2)

  Sweden GWS2 - 1 Canada
Period-by-Period: 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, OT: 0-0, GWS: 1-0
May 21st 2016, h. 20:45, LANXESS Arena, Cologne

Goals: 40. Hedman, winning shootout Bäckström - 42. O'Reilly (Marner, MacKinnon)

Referees: Jeřábek (CZE), Stricker (SUI)

Linesmens: Otmakhov (RUS), Suominen (FIN)

Penalties: 4:5 all for 2 min.

Power Play Goals: 0:1

Shorthanded Goals: 1:0

Attendance: 17.363

Sweden: H. Lundqvist - Stralman, Hedman, Ekman-Larsson, Brodin, Edler, J. Klingberg, Holm - Lindholm, Rask, Landeskog - Nylander, Bäckström, Lindberg - Everberg, Karlsson, Nordström - J. Lundqvist, Krüger, Eriksson Ek – Söderberg

Canada: Pickard – Parayko, Vlasic, Demers, de Haan, Morrissey, Matheson, Lee – MacKinnon, Scheifele, Skinner - Simmonds, Giroux, O'Reilly - Duchene, Couturier, Killorn - Marner, Point, Konecny - Schenn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Knockout Round

 

Gold Medal Match
Central European Summer Time (GMT +2)

  Sweden GWS2 - 1 Canada
Period-by-Period: 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, OT: 0-0, GWS: 1-0
May 21st 2016, h. 20:45, LANXESS Arena, Cologne

 

TRE KRONOR TAKES GOLD

Backstrom, Ekman-Larsson score in shootout

 

A tense, nervous, cautious game from start to finish produced two fluky goals, 20 minutes of overtime, and a decisive shootout. Final score, 2-1, Sweden.

 

Nicklas Backstrom and Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored shootout goals and goalie Henrik Lundqvist stopped all four shots he faced, giving Sweden its first World Championship gold medal since 2013.

 

It also marked the first time in four gold-medal games between the two nations that Sweden beat Canada (having lost in the finals of 1997, 2003, and 2004).

 

Canada, trying to win a third straight gold, has to settle for silver.

 

The only other World Championship gold-medal game to go to a shootout was in 1994, when Canada beat Finland.

 

Sweden's captain, Joel Lundqvist, now joins Sven "Tumba" Johansson as the only members of Tre Kronor to win three World Championship gold medals.

 

"For me it's the first time ever winning something with Team Sweden," enthused Marcus Kruger. "I know how important this is for all the guys on the team and for Swedish hockey in general. It's going to be a good thing to come back to Sweden and share it with the people there. It's going to be great to celebrate with the Swedish fans."

 

Jonas Brodin concurred: "It's really big. For Sweden and everything, it's amazing, a dream come true. It's going to be incredible when we go home. That's why we play, for Sweden, for the people there."

 

"We had chances to finish it in overtime, but I guess that's the way it goes," said Canadian Travis Konecny. "But you know what? Our goalie kept us in that game, he was great, he stood on his head all night and gave us a way to get back in it. Overtime was nerve-wracking.

 

I dunno, it's tough to swallow but at the same time they played a good game. It's heart-breaking, it's not what we came here for but it's good experience for me. It's my first time coming to this. There were definitely a lot of butterflies in those last minutes, in overtime and the shootout. It's crazy."

 

In order to get to the shootout, Canada had to kill an overtime tripping penalty to Sean Couturier, and it did so masterfully. Besides that, Canada had several dangerous forays into the Swedish end but couldn't beat Lundqvist, who came over to the team mid-tournament after his New York Rangers were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

 

Both goalies – Lundqvist and Cal Pickard – were named Best Player of the game for their respective teams.

 

"Henrik's been playing an awesome game, giving us a chance to win every time," Kruger said. "We know his track record. He's a winner and he's shown that today. He's a guy who comes up big in big games. Just look at his record in game sevens, and in playoffs and with Sweden, too."

 

Nate MacKinnon, Brayden Point, Ryan O'Reilly, and Mitch Marner all missed their shots in the shootout, O'Reilly hitting the post with his.

 

"It's hard to describe when it goes to a shootout like that," Alexander Edler said. "Everything happens so fast and you're world champion.

 

I’m letting this sink in. It is an unbelievable feeling. It was two good teams that played really well and really tight. In a shootout you never know what is going to happen but Henrik was great in net."

 

It was a game of bounces, a game full of tension from the opening minute that only got heavier as the game wore on. Canada had the better of play throughout, including superb penalty killing, but while Sweden failed to do much in the way of offence, Canada failed to translate its puck pursuit and possession into goals.

 

Canada's team was comprised entirely of NHLers with one late exception, Chris Lee, while the Swedes had 19 NHLers, making this a North American-style Stanley Cup playoff game on a big sheet of ice.

 

The first period was cautiously played by both sides, but that didn’t mean it was without chances. Sweden had the only two power plays of the first 20 minutes, but Canada’s penalty killers were flawless.

 

Canada had the best two chances to score. Mark Scheifele and MacKinnon created some speed through centre ice and hooked up for a nice passing play in the Sweden zone, Scheifele finishing by ripping a shot off the post behind Lundqvist.

 

Later, a long Ryan O’Reilly shot was kicked out by Lundqvist, but Matt Duchene couldn't tuck the rebound in.

 

Canada played flawless defence for most of two periods and had the majority of puck possession and scoring chances. An early penalty in the second to Backstrom gave the Canadians a couple of good chances, but they couldn’t convert.

 

Mike Matheson made a nice rush around the Sweden goal, but no one was in front for his centring pass. Soon after, Gabriel Landeskog nailed a quick one-timer, but Pickard was right there to make the save.

 

Backstrom took another penalty at the end of the period, and this led to the game’s first goal on a crazy play. Canada lost the puck inside its blue line and Colton Parayko tried to sweep it away. Victor Hedman backhanded the puck on goal from the blue line merely trying to get the puck deep on the penalty kill, but it bounced and floated and dribbled between Pickard’s pads with only 20.8 seconds left in the period.

 

"I got a fortunate bounce," Hedman acknowledged. "I wasn’t really friends with the puck there in the second period, so I just threw it at the net, and Joel and Krugs did a good job in front of the goalie. I don’t think he really saw it. I got a lucky bounce and the puck had eyes. It was good."

 

All that perfect defence from Canada gave way to bad luck, a fluky goal, and a 1-0 Sweden lead on a short-handed goal.

 

Canada didn't score on that power play to start the third, but it got another soon after and did score on an equally strange play. Marner took a shot and O'Reilly got the rebound. His shot went off Lundqvist's stick, off his mask, over his shoulder, and in at 1:58 to even the count at 1-1.

 

The rest of the period felt like overtime, and both teams survived late penalties to, indeed, send the game to a 20-minute fourth period – and a shootout.

 

"It is hard to explain how you feel," Lee said. "It took 80 minutes of five on five to make it 1-1. It is unfortunate to have games end in shootouts. It would have been nice to see who would come out on top if we continued playing overtime, but it is what it is. Sweden played a great game; we played a great game. It was a tight match."

 

 

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Nylander named MVP

Rookie forward impresses for Sweden

 

William Nylander's blistering pace brought him goals, a gold medal and the MVP award as chosen by the media at the end of the 2017 IIHF World Championship.

 

William Nylander was named tournament MVP of the 2017 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship on Sunday evening. The Swedish forward had seven goals and seven assists from 10 games as he helped his country win gold, giving him a share of fourth place on the scoring charts.

 

More memorable than the raw stats, though, was the stunning goal the 21-year-old Toronto Maple Leafs forward conjured to give Sweden a quarter-final win over Switzerland. His lightning pace took him on a breakaway and left Christian Marti with no option but to trip him. As he fell to the ice, though, he managed to steer the puck into the net to give the Tre Kronor a 2-1 lead on the way to a 3-1 victory.

 

Nylander’s performances in his first World Championship earned him the MVP award as voted by the media. The Media All Star Team had the Swede on a potent forward line with Artemi Panarin (Russia, 4+13 points) and Nate MacKinnon (Canada, 6+9). Panarin’s 17-point tally made him the World Championship’s leading scorer. He was also selected as Best Forward by the tournament directorate. MacKinnon shared second place on the scoring list with Nikita Kucherov, who tied with Nylander and Nikita Gusev for the leading goalscorer with seven.

 

On defence, Canada’s Colton Parayko was selected alongside Dennis Seidenberg of Germany. Seidenberg’s goal and seven assists made him one of the host nation’s most productive contributors on a run to the knock-out phase and earned him the Directorate Best Defenceman award. That goal came in the thrilling victory over Latvia that took the Germans through in dramatic fashion.

 

Russia’s Andrei Vasilevski was chosen as the Best Goaltender of the competition. He had three shutouts in nine games, blanking Italy and Denmark in the group phase then silencing the Czechs in the quarter-final. In total he stopped 93.56% of shots for a GAA of 1.72.

 

Individual Awards selected by the Tournament Directorate:

Best Goaltender: Andrei Vasilevski
Best Defenceman: Dennis Seidenberg
Best Forward: Artemi Panarin

 

Most Valuable Player selected by the Media:

William Nylander

 

All-Star Team selected by the Media:

GK: Andrei Vasilevski
DE: Colton Parayko
DE: Dennis Seidenberg
FW: William Nylander
FW: Artemi Panarin
FW: Nathan Mackinnon

 

[hckošice 14,899]

Sweden won 10th World title, first after 4 years. "Tre Kronor" after a traditional slow (not really convincing) start in the preliminary round where they just played what they had to do, restarted everything in the knockout phase and showed how extremely strong and skilled roster they have send to Cologne/paris this year. All in all deserved world title for Sweden.

 

Silver for Canada, The Canadians as always came with a great team, this year it wasn´t a so unbeatable team as it was in previous editions, but still it was a very strong team, and what is more important, this team was composed from players which have really good preconditions for the european sized rinks, they proved it during the tournament.

 

Bronze for Russia, just like last year. The Russians once again focused mainly on the KHL players and it worked well, especially the "killing" line with Dadonov, Shipachyov and Panarin showed some fantastic hockey, just bringing memories of the best years of the legendary ex-USSR hockey team, pity for the Znarok team that Mozyakin did injured too early, Russia missed definitely his goals in the KO round.

 

4th Finished Finland. A bit strange (partly succesful and partly disappointing) tournament for the Suomi. Finland came here with a rejuvenated and inexperienced team, focused mainly on the last years U20 world champions, Unfortunately they struggled too much in the preliminary round, giving them a much harder way in the elimination round, however Finland succeeded eliminating a strong SA team and passed to the final four.

 

5th United States, another newly fresh rejuvenated roster but composed from already big NHL names, Larkin, Eichel, Gaudreau what to say more, their hockey was awesome and highly watchable. USA even won tough group with Russia and Sweden, but didn´t avoid a traditional US mens top division flop, this time in the quarterfinal against Finland. But the future looks definitely very promising for this USA team.

 

6th Switzerland. Very good tournament for the swiss, team composed especially from players of the local NLA showed how Switzerland worked very well with youngs in the past years, This team presented a very intelingent smart hockey, everyone knew whats his duty and where his place. Tactically Switzerland was the best team of the tournament. They are with Sweden the only team who defeated Canada. Despite a great 2nd place of the group they lost to Sweden in QF meaning the end of the medal dreams.

 

7th Czech Republic. The Czechs send a strong team composed partially with great NHL stars like Voráček, Plekanec, Sobotka or Gudas and mixed them with young talents from european leagues. It worked pretty well, the czechs played a solid group phase, losing only to Canada and Switzerland. Unfortunately for them the defeat from SUI cost them the tournament, since it resulted on 3rd group place and a quarterfinal against the eternal rival from Russia.

 

8th Germany. one of the co-host fully achieved their goal, reaching the quarterfinals. Also did great job with even more promoting hockey in the country, the biggest boost was the help of their NHL stars, especially when Draisaitl and Grubauer arrived directly after their teams have been eliminated in the Stanley Cup, the German team started to play some very good and attractive hockey, what wasn´t always the fact in the past.

 

9th France, the second host. unfortunately for the "les Bleus" they didn´t repeated the German result and didn´t earned the play-off round. But it was very close, the lose in first match with Norway is the main factor, maybe it was about nervosity, because since then the French team passionated fans with excellent play and team spirit, managed to beat Finland for the first time for example. This was also the last tournament for the iconic legends Cristobal Huet and Laurent Meunier...I even can not immagine France playing without them, they were here practically each one year...

 

10th Latvia, Great and not very expected result for the Baltic team, Bob Hartley on the bench leading Latvia for the first time almost surprised the whole world with qualifying them to the quarterfinals, it was very very close a shootout lose to Germany in the final preliminary round game. Even if the feelings are bad right now they showed that they are in good way, and in the near future Latvia with this team and coach can aspire for some very interesting results.

 

11th Norway, fought hard for the play-offs until the end, but too many mistakes and disastrous penalty killing were too much for their hopes. anyway, Norway with a mixed team of experienced and inexperienced players and new coach and visions showed some potential for the future. if they will find how avoid too many stupid penalties and improve their discipline, they definitely can be a quarterfinal threat already next year.

 

12th Denmark, The Danes had the next year host immunity, so they played without any bigger pressure, it was clearly visible, they tested many playing systems during the tournament for next year which is their huge goal, but this year presented some high and low moments.

 

13th Belarus, Disastrous tournament for the Belarussian, team, a very very bad start of the tournament was wspecially mentally very problematic for them, they suddenly somehow stopped to play and started to lost each match, But the win over Slovenia came at the best moment for them and resulted in the maintain among the elite..since then we saw better and calm play from them and win in last game against Norway.

 

14th Slovakia...the worst ever result of our national team...it´s hard to write national team, because it wasn´t. it was just a team composed of rookies and inexperienced youngs from our and czech league, because anyone better wanted to come...I will not restart to write all our problems..I wrote them many times those days..so just let it be..and hopefully we will be able to solve them and calm our situation and next year in Denmark we will play with our best pplayers and attack higher places.

 

15th Slovenia, Pity, this team has skills and potential, and deserved to stay here, but too much penalties and unlucky moments in defensive play cost them once again a maintain after their comeback among the elite. Slovenia lost all matches and will be once again rlegated to Division I Group A next year, they will be replaced by Austria in top division 2018.

 

Last 16th finished Italy. very very brutal tournament for them, they were so close of a success and maintain, but 2 last minutes in games against Slovakia, Latvia and Denmark send them back quickly to Division I Group A 2018 without winning a single match here. Next year Italy will be replaced by a absolute newby South Korea.

 

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2017

 

 

 

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Knockout Round

 

Bronze Medal Match
Central European Summer Time (GMT +2)
Finland 3 - 5 Russia
Period-by-Period: 0-1, 1-3, 2-1
May 21st 2016, h. 16:15, LANXESS Arena, Cologne

 

HIGHLIGHTS

[hckošice 14,899]

MEN'S

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

2017

 

 

 

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Knockout Round

 

Gold Medal Match
Central European Summer Time (GMT +2)

  Sweden GWS2 - 1 Canada
Period-by-Period: 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, OT: 0-0, GWS: 1-0
May 21st 2016, h. 20:45, LANXESS Arena, Cologne

Goals: 40. Hedman, winning shootout Bäckström - 42. O'Reilly (Marner, MacKinnon)

Referees: Jeřábek (CZE), Stricker (SUI)

Linesmens: Otmakhov (RUS), Suominen (FIN)

Penalties: 4:5 all for 2 min.

Power Play Goals: 0:1

Shorthanded Goals: 1:0

Attendance: 17.363

Sweden: H. Lundqvist - Stralman, Hedman, Ekman-Larsson, Brodin, Edler, J. Klingberg, Holm - Lindholm, Rask, Landeskog - Nylander, Bäckström, Lindberg - Everberg, Karlsson, Nordström - J. Lundqvist, Krüger, Eriksson Ek – Söderberg

Canada: Pickard – Parayko, Vlasic, Demers, de Haan, Morrissey, Matheson, Lee – MacKinnon, Scheifele, Skinner - Simmonds, Giroux, O'Reilly - Duchene, Couturier, Killorn - Marner, Point, Konecny - Schenn.

 

HIGHLIGHTS

[Finnator123 292]

We fought hard and even made a stunning comeback, but sadly that wasn't enough
4th place was still amazing result from us   Thank god USA was "Normal US Hockey" Team , when the games mattered in the WC 

[Agger 1,663]

8 hours ago, hckosice said:

12th Denmark, The Danes had the next year host immunity, so they played without any bigger pressure, it was clearly visible, they tested many playing systems during the tournament for next year which is their huge goal, but this year presented some high and low moments.

 

 

It should also be mentioned that being next year's hosts has meant that some of our NHL players decided not to play this year to be sure they can do so next year if they aren't playing for the Cup.

We could surely have used some of those guys.

[hckošice 14,899]

3 hours ago, Agger said:

 

It should also be mentioned that being next year's hosts has meant that some of our NHL players decided not to play this year to be sure they can do so next year if they aren't playing for the Cup.

We could surely have used some of those guys.

 

Right