Heineman helps Sweden to lopsided win over Slovakia

MONTREAL – Top to bottom, it was a strong start for the Canadiens’ representatives on the opening day of the 2025 IIHF World Championship.

Emil Heineman helped Sweden cruise to a commanding win over Slovakia, while Vinzenz Rohrer and Austria held their own in a hard-fought loss to Finland on Friday.

Here’s a brief summary of the games:

AUSTRIA 1 – 2 FINLAND

Finland squeezed out a narrow 2-1 win over Austria to kick off Group A action.

Austria thought they had tied things up in the third period when Marco Kasper — the team’s lone NHLer — beat the Finnish netminder. But the goal was overturned for goaltender interference, and that was as close as Austria came on Friday.

Rohrer logged 17:29 of ice time and won 50% of his faceoffs in the loss.

SWEDEN 5 – 0 SLOVAKIA

It took some time for Sweden to find their footing, but once they did, there was no looking back.

Heineman served up a perfect pass to Mikael Backlund, who buried it with relative ease to open the scoring at Avicii Arena in Stockholm.

P1 11:17 [1]-0 Backlund (Heineman, Lindholm)

Leo Carlsson, Jonas Brodin, Elias Lindholm and Mika Zibanejad added markers for the Swedes, who cruised to a shutout win in their tournament opener.

What’s next?

All three Habs representatives will hit the ice at Avicii Arena on Saturday.

Mike Matheson and Team Canada open their tournament against Slovenia at 6:20 a.m. ET, followed by a showdown between Sweden and Austria at 10:20 a.m., featuring Heineman and Rohrer.

Cover photo: Andre Ringuette/IIHF