Team Europe continues run with 3-2 OT victory
TORONTO — Somehow, somewhere, something got lost in translation.
And not because Team Europe’s roster has been stitched together with players representing no fewer than eight countries, and all the native tongues they bring to the mix.
In some ways, the blending of nations and cultures almost appears to be an asset.
But for any number of reasons — most rooted in reality — almost no one expected Team Europe to reach the World Cup of Hockey final, which it did with a 3-2 overtime victory Sunday against Sweden at Air Canada Centre.
Certainly, no one was publicly predicting it after Team North America, that precocious group of 23-and-under scamps, spanked Team Europe, 4-0 and 7-4, in two pre-tournament meetings.
“Thank God they were exhibition games,” Europe defenseman Andrej Sekera said. “The first games together were pretty tough. We played not very good.
“But we got better and better. I guess those two games showed us where we need to be, if we wanted to do something in this tournament.”
Indeed, those defeats convinced coach Ralph Krueger and his players that the team’s best hope of success was to play a responsible twoway game, rather than trying to win with flash and dash.
“We didn’t really choose the best way to play against [North America],” Europe winger Tomas Tatar said. “Since then, we’ve just been going. I think we found our game.”
Tatar certainly found his against Sweden, scoring two goals.
The first, 12 seconds into the third period, gave Europe a 2-1 lead. The second, at 3:43 of overtime, gave it a berth in the best-of-three championship round.
“There’s so much happening here within this group, as far as players stepping up at different times to take us to victory,” Krueger said. “And today, it was Tomas.”
The game-winner, Tatar said, came when a Mats Zuccarello pass bounced off pad of Swedish goalie Henrik Lundqvist then hit “my skate and went in.”
The goal went to a video review.
Sweden lost the review. And the game.
Overtime might not have been necessary if not for Europe goalie Jaroslav Halak, who made 37 saves.
Sweden had the better of play for stretches of the game, but got pucks past him only twice.
Nothing unusual about that, though.
Halak is 3-1 — his only loss, 4-1, was to Canada — with a 1.96 goals-against average and .947 save percentage.
“He’s been absolutely fantastic,” Krueger said. “Everybody in this room knows we wouldn’t be here without fabulous goaltending.”
Canada, which has won 14 consecutive games in international competitions, was a popular choice to win the tournament before it began, and facing a team many expected to be dissolved and forgotten after the round-robin portion of the World Cup isn’t going to change that.
But Team Canada officials, after watching Europe eliminate the Swedes, insisted that Europe will present a formidable challenge when the teams meet Tuesday night in Game 1 of the final.
“Shame on us if we don’t take them seriously after seeing what they’ve done here,” Canada general manager Doug Armstrong said.