Final Four Set

It may not look like it with just 4 goals over two games, but the Americans continued their dangling, sniping ways into the second round of the playoffs. The unofficial clang count was somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 for the US as they missed blowing out their opponent by half an inch on many occasions. The defending champion Czech team went home without much of a fight, managing only 1 goal over two games.

Norway, on the other hand, put up quite a fight. The only underdog to make it through the first round was also the only underdog to not get swept out of the second. They stunned the number two seeded Russia with a victory in game one, but made too many mistakes and missed too many oppurtunities in the next two games. Two missed penalty shots and the inability to get a shot off on a wide open net sunk the Norwegians in game two while going shorthanded on six different occasions lost them the chance to take game three.

So that means that the final four now consists of the four top seeded teams. Top seeded Canada will host Sweden while number two seeded Russia will have to shake off their near loss to take on the USA

The Games Matche the Hype; Sweden Moves On

The geographical rivalry and an unusual amount of talk between teams gave quite a bit of hype to the match up between #4 seeded Sweden and #5 seeded Finland. The series lived up to the hype, although not exactly in the way that everyone anticipated. Much of the talk going into the series surrounded both teams' full compliment of phenominally talented snipers and playmakers, but it was the goaltending that stole the show. Sweden took the first game, 2-0 and the second, 1-0 as Henrik Lundqvist posted back to back shut outs to earn both victories. Lundqvist is undefeated in 3 games and still hasn't allowed a goal in the tournament. He was also named 1st star in both games against Finland.

Lundqvist has had to be dominating with the way Sweden's forwards have been playing. Only Peter Forsberg and Loui Erikson scoring goals in 3 games. Part of that is due to Finland's two headed goalie attack. Miika Kiprusoff stopped 11 of 13 shots in game 1, but was replaced by Niklas Backstrom in game 2 who stopped 13 of 14 shots.

Sweden will be facing Canada in the semi-finals.