Ekman-Larsson Helps Sweden Win IIHF World Championship

GLENDALE --Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson played a key role Sunday for Team Sweden, which defeated Team Switzerland, 3-2 in a shootout, in the gold-medal game at the 2018 IIHF World Championship in Copenhagen, Denmark.
"It feels great," Ekman-Larsson said in a post-game interview. "We played a really good tournament, and everybody has been working so hard. It's so fun that everybody gets to experience this feeling."

Ekman-Larsson skated 31:11, took five shots on goal, set up the game-tying goal, and scored one of Sweden's two shootout goals.
The triumph is Sweden's 11th overall and second in a row at the annual 16-team tournament; Ekman-Larsson and the Swedes also won the gold-medal game last year at Cologne, Germany.

Trailing 2-1, Ekman-Larsson assisted on Mika Zibanejad's power-play goal with 5:07 left in the second period, Later, down 1-0 in the shoutout, Ekman-Larsson, who scored a shootout goal in last year's gold-medal game vs. Canada, scored another vs. Switzerland with a casual forehand shot over Swiss goalie Leonardo Genoni's glove in the third round. Filip Forsberg scored the decisive goal for Sweden in the fourth round.
"We believed in what we came here to do," Ekman-Larsson said. "Everybody played very good for us, and we had an unbelievable team so it was a lot of fun ... We knew that it was going to be a tough game (vs. Switzerland), and I thought we stuck to the game plan."
Switzerland, coached by former Coyotes forward Patrick Fischer (2006-07), was attempting to win the world championship for the first time.

Ekman-Larsson notched two goals and five assists in 10 games at this year's tournament and led the Swedes in ice time (245:49) and ice time/per game (24:34). He was one of four Swedes named to the tournament's official All-Star team along with goalie Anders Nilsson, defenseman Adam Larsson and forward Rickard Rakell. American forward Patrick Kane and Finnish forward Sebastian Aho rounded out the team, and Kane was named the tournament's MVP.
Earlier on Sunday, Team USA beat Team Canada, 4-1, in the bronze-medal game. Coyotes goalie Darcy Kuemper served as the backup to Canada's Curtis McElhinney and did not play.
Kuemper, a Team Canada rookie, stopped 98 of 113 shots in seven games at this year's tournament. His goals-against average was 2.48.