Calgary Flames at World Championship: Day nine recap
By Ramina Shlah
Two members of the Calgary Flames were in action on Saturday at the World Championship. Let’s check out how they each did.
Two members of the Calgary Flames were in action today at the World Championship. Bill Peters coaching Team Canada and Mikael Backlund captaining Team Sweden. One had a successful outcome and the other… not so much.
Sweden played against Slovakia and for the first time, the Swedes required extra time. To this point, they were a perfect 4-0-0-0. They still managed the win with Rickard Rakell being the OT hero and scoring with less than a minute left on the powerplay. Sweden continues to lead Group A with 14 points in five games. Backlund had one assist today but wasn’t as successful as he has been with his faceoffs, going just 5/11.
Bill Peters for Team Canada wasn’t as successful today. They’ve been dominating most of their games but tonight was just not their night against Team Finland. Finland scored three goals in the first period on just ten shots which permitted a goaltending change. They led 3-1 after the first period and after the second.
In the third period, a bad turnover by Canada led to another Finnish goal, bumping their lead to three. After that goal, with a faceoff at centre-ice, Finland won the faceoff then scored another goal – just 11 seconds after the fourth one. They won this game 5-1 and this was Canada’s first regulation loss at the tournament.
Canada has now dropped to fourth place in Group B with 10 points in five games. Their position at the tournament is starting to get questioned and they could very well not even make it to the quarter-finals.
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Canada will try and get a better outcome on Monday when they take on Team Latvia – a team that is creeping up on them in the standings. Backlund and Team Sweden will play again tomorrow against Team Switzerland.