MILAN — The Swedes are in trouble.
Just two days after needing a third-period rally to beat Italy, Team Sweden lost convincingly to its archrival Finland on Friday, 4-1, in a performance that ought to raise alarm bells for the 2006 gold medalists.
Finland, which lost its first game at the Olympics to Slovakia, was more physical, more composed and had better goaltending. They controlled the game throughout as the Swedes — who expect gold every bit as much as Canada or the United States — looked no better than they had against Italy.
This time, there was an opponent who could stay with them for 60 minutes, and this time, they were made to pay.
The low point of the afternoon came with Sweden on the power play, trailing 2-1 midway through the second period. Finland’s Erik Haula got to the corner first after a clearance, then out-battled three Swedes — Joel Eriksson Ek, Erik Karlsson and Mika Zibenejad — to feed Joel Armia for a shorthanded goal.
Even with a pair of power play chances in the third to go with five in the game, the Swedes couldn’t get a comeback going. The closest Tre Kroner came to scoring in the third was when Anton Lundell beat Alex Wennberg to clear a puck out of the crease that had gotten behind Juuse Saros.
Mikko Rantanen eventually sealed the game with an empty-netter.
The Finns did lose Niko Mikkola, a top-four defenseman, to injury in the third period. If Mikkola can’t dress, then Mikko Lehtonen — who plays for the Zurich Lions in the Swiss League — would be the next man up.
Finland had opened the scoring just 7:44 into the match on a Nikko Matinpalo blast. That immediately called Sweden coach Sam Hallam’s decision to stick with Filip Gustavsson off a shaky performance against Italy into question.
Gustavsson, who finished with 20 stops, was far from the only problem for Sweden on Friday, but he didn’t exactly quiet the noise either.
All game long, Finland had the edge in both creases. Anton Lundell and Kaapo Kakko were both in front, and Lundell redirected Eetu Luostarinen’s shot to make it 2-0 at the 15:26 mark of the first.
Rasmus Dahlin pulled Sweden back to 2-1 on the power play early in the second, but that was one of few contributions Tre Kroner got from its lineup of superstars.
Lucas Raymond, Elias Pettersson, William Nylander, Jesper Bratt and Zibanejad were all somewhere between anonymous and not good enough. Filip Forsberg at least played more than the 1:07 of ice he was allotted against Italy, though his limited usage remains confusing to say the least.
Finland, which absolutely needed this game after being shocked by Slovakia, got a superlative performance from its bottom six. It wreaked havoc, played as physical a game as any team has at these Olympics so far and got its tournament right back on track.
Sweden has one more preliminary round game — against Slovakia — to do the same, or it is on course for a colossal disappointment.