CALGARY -- The Swedish National Junior Team has visions of celebrating its first World Junior Championship in 31 years.
In order for that to happen, the club will have to dethrone the defending champion Russia in Thursday's gold-medal match at Scotiabank Saddledome.
Russian coach Valeri Bragin, in a somewhat surprising move, will start Andrei Makarov between the pipes against the Swedes. Andrei Vasilevski had started all the big games for the Russians, but was pulled with less than five minutes remaining in Tuesday's semifinal round match with Canada after allowing four quick third-period goals.
Makarov entered the game cold and proceeded to stop all seven shots he faced in a 6-5 victory.
Not surprisingly, Sweden's Johan Gustafsson gets the nod in goal.
Here are the lineups:
Russia
G: Andrei Makarov
Apalkov-Kosov-Barbashev (Sergeyev-Arzamastsev)
Yakupov-Khokhlachev-Kuznetsov (Antipin-Ozhiganov)
Gusev-Kucherov-Grigorenko (Zheldakov-Nesterov)
Kulikov-Zemchenko-Telegin (Naumenkov)
Sweden
G: Johan Gustafsson
Larsson-Sundstrom-Friberg (Klefbom-Brodin)
Boyce Rotevall-Nordstrom-Thorell (Granberg-Nemeth)
Karlsson-Zibanejad-Rakell (Backman-Claesson)
Collberg-Forsberg-Rask-Rensfeldt (Klinberg)
2012 World Junior Championship
Russia and Sweden ready for golden matchup
Thursday, 01.05.2012 / 8:00 PM
By Mike G. Morreale - NHL.com Staff Writer / 2012 World Junior Championship blog
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