Samuel Pahlsson scored a late equalizer as Sweden tied Nordic archrival Finland 1-1, and Canada shut out Latvia 2-0 in qualifying-round openers at the world ice hockey championship on Friday.
Canada, which edged Sweden on a controversial overtime goal in last year's final, and Sweden both stayed unbeaten.
The Finns were looking for revenge against the Swedes after blowing a 5-1 lead halfway through last year's quarterfinals, and losing 6-5 in one of the toughest losses in Finnish sports history. They nearly got it.
PHOTO: EPA
Behind 1-0, Sweden coach Hardy Nilsson pulled goalie Henrik Lundqvist for an extra attacker with 2:09 left, and the gamble paid off. Pahlsson made the tip-in from the left point by defenseman Christian Backman with 55 seconds left.
It was a fluke goal, television replays showing the puck bounced three times between the posts before going in.
"I had my back against the goal and just slightly touched the puck with my stick," said Pahlsson, after scoring his first goal for Sweden in four years. "I have no idea how the puck went in. Maybe you need something like that, luck, to score against him. He was very good today."
Nilsson was pleased with the tie.
"I think we really deserved this point and I'm really satisfied with the way they played tonight," Nilsson said. "Nowadays there are always good games between Sweden and Finland because both teams play to win. It was a tough team we played. I'm proud that my players put so much pressure on them."
Finland coach Raimo Summanen was also satisfied.
"I'm really happy we got one point, we had some hard times and they had good pressure in our end," Summanen said. "Their style to play was unbelievable."
With the tie, Sweden closed in on an expected quarterfinal berth, and now leads qualifying Group F with 5 points, two ahead of Slovakia and Finland (3 each), Russia (2), the US (1) and Denmark (0).
In late games, Slovakia and Russia met in Ostrava, while the Czech Republic faced Austria in Prague.
Defenseman Petteri Nummelin, at age 31 the second oldest player on the Finnish team, fired a big slap shot from the left point past Lundqvist at 15:37 in the second period, after the Swedes had failed to capitalize on four power-plays.
Excellent goaltending by Lundqvist, who had 14 saves, and Mika Noronen, who stopped 28 shots, made it a low-scoring game.
Finland and Sweden met for the European Hockey Tour championship two weeks ago with the Finns winning that two-game series in overtime in Helsinki. Since then both teams had added more NHL players.
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