Team Sweden, Team Russia seek fast start
Defense, power play could determine winner in World Cup preliminary round game
What's at stake: Team Sweden and Team Russia will each play its first preliminary round game for the World Cup of Hockey 2016. The winner will have the inside track to be one of the two teams to advance from Group B to the semifinals. Team Sweden is one of the tournament favorites after winning the silver medal at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Team Russia is looking for redemption after being eliminated in the quarterfinals as the host country in the Sochi Games, making it three consecutive Olympics where it did not win a medal.
Team Sweden: Goaltender Jacob Markstrom starts for Henrik Lundqvist, who is sick and not in the lineup. Lundqvist allowed five goals on 22 shots and gave up eight goals on 33 shots overall in two pretournament games. A 6-2 loss to Team Europe in its final pretournament game on Wednesday changed the tune a little for Team Sweden heading into its World Cup opener. Instead of rolling into the preliminary round with confidence, Team Sweden was talking about getting a wakeup call. "We took a step back, mostly [with] the play with the puck and that's easy to fix," captain Henrik Sedin said. "It would have been worse if it would have been mistakes when we didn't have the puck. I think it was part of just an exhibition game, last game before the tournament starts." The line of Daniel Sedin (one goal, two assists), Henrik Sedin (two assists) and Loui Eriksson (three goals) combined for four goals, four assists in the pretournament. Right wing Patric Hornqvist tied for the pretournament lead with five points (three goals, two assists).
Team Russia:After its recent Olympic failures, Team Russia has been flying under the radar a little leading up to the start of the World Cup. But there is plenty of pressure on this team to have a good result in a best-against-best tournament and re-establish itself as a hockey power. "It's up to you guys [the media]," captain Alex Ovechkin said of the expectations for Team Russia. "You're the ones that kind of talks about who is going to be in which position. It doesn't matter. On the radar, under the radar, we don't care." Team Russia appeared to be searching for chemistry among its talented group of forwards, going 1-0-2 in pretournament play. Its best line has been the combination of Artemi Panarin, Vadim Shipachyov and Evgeny Dadonov, who played together in the Kontinental Hockey League before Panarin (two goals, two assists in three pretournament games) jumped to the NHL with the Chicago Blackhawks last season. Moving the puck quickly and accurately will be essential for Team Russia's unheralded group of defensemen. Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky will start. Defenseman Nikita Nesterov and forward Vladislav Namestnikov will be the healthy scratches.
Keep your eye on: The power play for Team Russia. A team with Ovechkin, Panarin, Pavel Datsyuk, Nikita Kucherov, Evgeni Malkin, Vladimir Tarasenko and more has the pieces to be lethal on the power play, but was 2-for-16 with the man advantage and was guilty of overpassing at times (16 shots on goal in the 16 opportunities) in pretournament play. Russia also struggled on the power play in the past two Olympics (6-for-39), so it has been an area the coaches have been focusing on leading up to the game on Sunday.
Berglund, Lindholm scratched: Team Sweden will scratch forward Patrik Berglund and defenseman Hampus Lindholm from the lineup Sunday.
Carl Soderberg, who played center in the three pretournament games, will move to the wing with Mikael Backlund playing center on the fourth line. Marcus Kruger, who missed the last two pretournament games with an upper-body injury, will play.
Team Sweden coach Rikard Gronborg gave specific reasons for why he's moving Soderberg to the wing against Team Russia.
"We like having several players on that line who can take the draw just in case someone gets kicked out," he said. "Right now, [with] the opponent we're playing, it gives Soderberg some free range when it comes to forechecking and putting pressure on the Russian defensemen. That's the reason we did what we did."
They said it: "Everyone says that maybe their 'D' is a weakness, but, the way I look at it, they can skate and they can pass the puck. It is going to be a tough game [Sunday]. They have a lot of firepower up front. I think the key for us is to try to stay out of the box and try to get our power play going to. I think 5-on-5 we are pretty even teams." - Team Sweden forward Daniel Sedin.
Here are the projected lineups:
TEAM SWEDEN
Daniel Sedin - Henrik Sedin - Loui Eriksson
Filip Forsberg - Nicklas Backstrom - Patric Hornqvist
Carl Hagelin - Marcus Kruger - Jakob Silfverberg
Gabriel Landeskog - Mikael Backlund - Carl Soderberg
Mattias Ekholm - Erik Karlsson
Victor Hedman - Anton Stralman
Oliver Ekman-Larsson - Niklas Hjalmarsson
Jacob Markstrom
Jhonas Enroth
Injured: None
Scratched: Patrik Berglund, Hampus Lindholm, Henrik Lundqvist
TEAM RUSSIA
Alex Ovechkin - Pavel Datsyuk - Nikita Kucherov
Nikolay Kulemin - Evgeni Malkin - Vladimir Tarasenko
Artemi Panarin - Vadim Shipachyov - Evgeny Dadonov
Ivan Telegin - Artem Anisimov - Evgeny Kuznetsov
Dmitry Orlov - Nikita Zaitsev
Andrei Markov - Alexei Emelin
Dmitry Kulikov - Alexey Marchenko
Sergei Bobrovsky
Semyon Varlamov
Injuries: None
Scratched: Vladislav Namestnikov, Nikita Nesterov, Andrei Vasilevskiy
