Flames at 2019 World Juniors: a dramatic Swedish finish

After an off-day on Friday, all four Calgary Flames prospects were in action at the 2019 World Junior Championship on Saturday. While one game was decidedly one-sided, the other game they were involved in saw a ton of drama.

The good news is that Flames prospect Milos Roman scored for Slovakia.

The bad news is the Slovakians were badly out-gunned by Finland and lost a very one-sided game. Finland scored on a five-on-three, then added four more even strength goals in a game that they never trailed. The Slovakians tried to keep things close, but took too many penalties and weren’t sharp enough to connect on too many of their own power plays. Roman’s marker, a power play goal, came when it was already 4-0 for Finland.

The Flames trio had a very uneven afternoon:

This was a wild game. The Swedes spotted themselves a 4-0 by early in the third period, but the Americans clawed their way back. The Swedes got into penalty trouble and the Americans scored a pair of power play goals to make a game of it. Then they scored twice with the goalie pulled for an extra attacker to force overtime.

But the Swedes managed to captured a victory with a goal in overtime to triumph in a game that they had well in hand before they, well, didn’t.

Flames prospect Filip Sveningsson didn’t play a ton in this game, logging the second-least time of any Swedish forward at 8:52. He had two shots in limited duty, so he wasn’t bad.

Up Next: Slovakia closes out their round robin on Sunday against Kazakhstan. Sweden has to wait until Monday to finish their round robin schedule, also against Kazakhstan. Slovakia is still looking for their first win – and are trying to cement a spot in the medal round – while Sweden will be looking to capture top spot in Group B.