National teams with players who play in Sweden

While looking at "the power rankings" I dug a little deeper to see which players played where this year. I knew that the Finnish team for example would have players who played this season in Sweden but I was surprised to find so many Canadians who played in Sweden this year. Morrison was in Linköping, and Turco was in Stockholm for a while. The overall list is below.

Ranking Number of players who played in Sweden 2004 - 05
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1. Canada   5
2. Czech Rep.  1
3. USA   1
4. Slovakia   1
5. Sweden   20
6. Finland   3
7. Russia   0
8. Switzerland  2
9. Germany   0
10.Austria   0

The rankings are taken from the International Ice Hockey Federation, and I am not sure they are very accurate. There is no way the Russians are the seventh best team in the world, they are much better than that. I doubt that USA and Slovakia are both better than Sweden, but of course, all of this will be settled on the ice. For fun, here is my top ten;

1. Canada
2. Czech Rep.
3. Russia
4. Sweden
5. USA
6. Slovakia
7. Finland
8. Switzerland
9. Austria
10.Germany

World Cup now on deck

The World Cup of hockey is being held starting this weekend. Sweden is ranked 2nd in the world and certainly hopes for a medal. I think there is a strong chance of a medal, but I think that there are some really strong teams at the moment.

Firstly, look out for Russia. They beat Sweden in the finals of the Euro Hockey Tour, two games - one in Sweden and one in Russia. The Russians looked sharp. They have some pretty big stars on board; Kovalev, Yashin, Datsyuk, Afigenov, and more besides. They are deep with Yashin playing on their third line. I think they will definitely medal in these games, along with the Czech Republic. Canada of course is always strong and the US can be strong as well. People forget that there are some pretty strong American players.

The Swedes do not have all of their best players unfortunately. Mats Sundin, Peter Forsberg, Niklas Sundstrom as well as other stars on not going to play. I cannot understand why their best players do not want to play for the national team. I would think it would be an honor. I understand that the Europeans play more national matches than the Americans so it can be more commonplace to play in your national colors, but still - this is the World Cup.

The Swedish team is pretty good though, and many players have come right out of the finals right into international competition. Daniel Alfredsson and his line has been kept intact from the Gothenburg team and the best player in the Swedish League, Henrik Lundqvist, is in the goal. When you have a strong goalie, you always have chance to do well. Lots of stars, eager teams and coaches, should be a good World Cup.

Frölunda wins in five

Though it was long predicted, it still feels really great that Frölunda has won at last. When we lost the first game there was a lot of naysaying and speculation, particularly from the papers in Stockholm. They said our backs were old. Well they may be old but they are brilliant. Along with Henke they shut down the opposition the rest of the way. Färjestad scored one more goal the rest of the series and Frölunda shut them out at home. Including the 1 - 0 win to win the championship. I think we'll take Frölunda's backs any day.

It was some what hard to pick a most valuable player, though the logical choice was Henrik (Henke) Lundqvist. He was brilliant. But Daniel Alfredsson was also amazing setting a record for points scored in post-season play. Niklas Andersson was also brilliant, scoring the winning goal in overtime and showing his leadership skills the whole way, skating hard as if he was nineteen.

Another player that deserves mention is Jari Tosla. He played tough and agressively, going to the net and forchecking. He scored a goal and his entire line played well, although I think many people expected more from Magnus Kahnberg. Magnus scored five goals but there were times during the season where he would dominate a defense nearly completely, so we expected a lot in the playoffs.

Now it is time to look to the World Championships! The good news is that there are six players from Frölunda on the team.

Finals

The first two games of the finals have been played with each team winning at home. You might think that means that it will be a close series. Well, maybe not. Firstly, Frölunda nearly came back from 0 - 2 to close the gap to 2 - 3, instead they failed to score and lost with an empty net goal, 2 - 4. When they came back to Göteborg however, the match wasn't close. It was 1 - 0 after 38 seconds and ended up being 5 - 0. That is a pretty brutal thumping that damages the psyche. Yeah, you think that you can maybe win at home but you know you have no chance away in enemy territory, that puts a lot of pressure on every match and that leads to mistakes.

After seeing the match the other night I now think that Frölunda will probably win in five, which is great since it will happen at home. There is an away match tonight and then two home matches, if we win to night it might be all over in a few days!