There was good news and bad news at Sweden’s second practice at the 4 Nations Face-Off in Montreal on Tuesday morning.
The good news is that blueliner Gustav Forsling, absent on Monday due to illness, was a full participant on Tuesday. The bad news, particularly for fans of the Calgary Flames, is that the addition of Forsling triggered a defensive shuffle which pushed Rasmus Andersson to the seventh slot.
Here’s how Sweden’s lineup looked, via The Athletic’s Fluto Shinzawa (and Daily Faceoff’s line charts):
The forwards were unchanged:
- Filip Forsberg – Elias Pettersson – Adrian Kempe
- Rickard Rakell – Mika Zibanejad – William Nylander
- Jesper Bratt – Joel Eriksson Ek – Lucas Raymond
- Viktor Arvidsson – Elias Lindholm – Gustav Nyquist
- Leo Carlsson as the 13th forward
The blueline pairs were said to be as follows:
- Victor Hedman – Jonas Brodin
- Mattias Ekholm – Erik Karlsson
- Gustav Forsling – Rasmus Dahlin
- Andersson as the seventh defender.
The three Swedish goaltenders are Filip Gustavsson, Linus Ullmark and Samuel Ersson.
As previously noted, this is Andersson’s first time representing Sweden at a major international event as a senior level player; he previously represented Sweden as a junior-aged player at two editions of the Under-18 World Championships and one instalment of the Hlinka Gretzky Cup (at the time called the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament).
Sweden is scheduled to play three times at the 4 Nations Face-Off: Wednesday against Canada, Saturday against Finland and Monday against the United States. While it currently seems unlikely that Andersson will slot in against Canada, as he’s skating as the extra defender, we can’t rule out the possibility that he could work his way into the subsequent games depending on how things go (and how the other blueliners do in the games).
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