Flames at 2019 World Juniors: Sweden wins head-to-head battle

All four Calgary Flames prospects involved in the 2019 World Junior Championship were in action on Thursday. For the convenience of all, they were involved in the same game as Sweden played Slovakia in Group B action in Victoria.

The Slovaks played this game the way they did against the United States, while Sweden played the way they did against Finland. Slovakia tried to rely on structure to slow down Sweden, but they weren’t successful for too long.

It was 1-1 midway through the first period, but Sweden added a late even strength goal to make it 2-1 and then added some insurance on the power play (with Flames prospect Adam Ruzicka in the box) to make it 3-1 by the early second period. They were able to just roll their lines from that point and the game ended with a 5-2 score in favour of Tre Kronor.

Filip Sveningsson had a pretty good game for Sweden and worked his way up the rotation a bit, playing 10:25 – more than four of Sweden’s 12 other forwards. He had two shots and a minus-1 rating, but he generated a couple good scoring chances and generally looked solid in limited use.

The Flames’ Slovakian trio were alright, but not spectacular. Milos Roman played 20:25 (second among all Slovakian forwards) and had one shot and a minus-1 rating. Ruzicka played 18:31 and was even with one shot, but his penalty led to the eventual game-winning goal from Sweden. Martin Pospisil played just 12:58, but the game featured a lot of special teams and so he didn’t factor in as much. He had one shot and a minus-1 rating.

Up Next: Sweden (2-0-0) faces the United States on Saturday. Slovakia (0-2-0) plays Finland on Saturday.