The journey of Finland in the Ice Hockey World Championship 2024 has been ended when they lost to neighbouring Sweden in the quarter-final in Ostrava Arena, Czech Republic late Thursday night.
Although the regular time of match was 1-1 draw, Joel Eriksson Ek scored a goal for Sweden at the sixth minute of the extra-time resulting end of the World Cup dream for the Lions this year.
The Swedish players, who dominated over the Finns from the beginning created several chances of goal but failed to score in the first and second periods of the game.
The Lions, who also found some good opportunities in the first two periods but failed to send the puck into Swedish net.
The Finns strongly came back to the game from the beginning of third period and both the teams created tremendous pressures on each other and finally Rasmus Dahlin scored a goal at the 56th minute and took 1-0 lead for Sweden.
After conceding the goal the Lions became very aggressive to level the score and started to play empty net and finally Hannes Bjorninen scored at the last minute of the game resulting 1-1 draw in the regular time and took the match to an extra time.
Both the teams were playing carefully from the beginning of the extra-time and also created few chances but Konsta Helenius got a penalty for a hooking at the fifth minute creating advantage for the Swedish players and Joel Eriksson Ek sent puck into the Finnish net on the following minute to ensure semi-final for Sweden.
In their group matches, the Lions beat Norway by 4-1, Great Britain by 8-0 and Denmark by 3-1 and lost to Czech Republic on tiebreaker, Austria 2-3, Canada 3-5 and Switzerland 1-3.
Source: www.dailyfinland.fi
What an intense match it was! I feel for Finland, they fought hard but Sweden’s perseverance paid off in the end. Looking forward to seeing how Sweden performs in the semi-finals!