Finland won the Channel One Cup on Sunday by beating Olympic champion Sweden 4-3 in a penalty shootout to end Russia’s streak of five straight titles at the home tournament.
Earlier, Alexey Morozov had the decisive goal in a penalty shootout to give Russia a 4-3 win over the Czech Republic and second place in the event.
Jarkko Immonen scored twice for Finland in the shootout, while Magnus Johansson scored one for Sweden but failed to beat Liro Tarkki on his second attempt.
Finland took the lead for the first time when Ville Peltonen scored his second goal to make it 3-2 with eight minutes left of the third period. But Sweden equalized four minutes later when Daniel Tjarnqvist stretched his stick to redirect a slap shot from Niklas Persson into the net.
Johansson and Tobias Viklund also scored for Sweden, while Jukka Hentunen netted Finland’s first goal.
Tarkki had 15 saves and Liv had 31 as Finland dominated the game.
The teams are using the third leg of the four-nation Euro Hockey Tour to test non-NHL players ahead of the Vancouver Olympics in February.
“It was very important for us to win this tournament,” Finland coach Jukka Jalonen said. “We also watched our best players.”
Oleg Saprykin put Russia ahead at 15 minutes, 11 seconds. Russia survived 87 seconds of being two men down before Ilya Nikulin made it 2-0 on a power play at 35:36.
But the visitors scored twice in 82 seconds to level at 2-2 after two periods. Ondrei Nemec scored a power-play goal at 38:38 and Miroslav Blatak scored from a two-on-one counterattack at 40:00.
Russia’s Alexander Radulov scored from close range on a solo effort at 52:58, but Roman Cervenka, left unmarked in front of goal, equalized less then two minutes later. Neither team scored in overtime.
Sergey Mozyakin and Morozov scored for Russia in the shootout while the Czechs failed to beat Vasili Koshechkin. Koshechkin had 20 saves in the match, while Marek Schwarz had 31.
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