Men’s Hockey: Sweden Shuts Out Germany, 2-0, In Group C Preliminary Match

It wasn’t pretty, that’s for sure.

Despite facing off against a far inferior German team, Sweden was able to hold on for a 2-0 victory in a Group C preliminary contest on Wednesday night in Vancouver. It was the first game of the Olympic tournament for both teams.

Team Sweden is far superior to Team Germany, and if you were to tell a fan of the club that they’d only have 16 shots on the Germans through two periods, they’d be highly disappointed. The Swedes have the lead, but they’re allowing Germany to stick close in this game. Two mistakes and we could have a tie game, and for Sweden, that’s just unacceptable.

They largely controlled the second period after a pretty even first, and they should be okay if they can continue the same upward trend. Against one of the better teams in the tournament, though, this kind of performance won’t fly. Sweden should be grateful that they’re playing a weaker team in this first matchup.

The Swedes have opened up the game a little bit, separating themselves from Germany on a goal by Loui Eriksson to give them a 2-0 lead at the 14:13 mark of the second period.

Nicklas Backstrom really made the whole play happen. He danced away from his defender in the corner and when another German committed to him, he played the puck to a wide open Eriksson near the goal mouth. Eriksson easily put it past Thomas Greiss.

Germany isn’t considered a strong team in this tournament. Sweden is the defending gold medalist. So, logically, to win this game, Germany is going to have to be opportunistic. More than halfway through the second period, they simply aren’t doing so.

Despite over five minutes of power play time thus far, Germany hasn’t been able to generate the creative kind of offense it’s going to take to beat Henrik Lundqvist and the Swedes.

Most of the Twittersphere has been furious at NBC for broadcasting the 11th End of a USA vs Switzerland (that means overtime, for the uninitiated) on CNBC over the beginning of the Sweden-Germany preliminary men’s hockey game this evening. The biggest question is that, with 900 networks at their disposal, why couldn’t NBC put the game on another channel?

Nevertheless, the game does in fact happen, even if nobody in the United States can see it, and the Germans staged a virtual coup by getting through the first period without the potent Swedes scoring. They played a strong defensive period while Sweden, quite honestly, looked a little sloppy and disorganized.