Hockey World Championship 2025: The first rival of Slovakia is home Sweden (analysis)
Stockholm. What can be harder for Slovak representation As a home favorite in the opening match World Cup? The three crowns team thinks of nothing but gold medals.
Last time they won gold 7 years ago, despite the fact that they are always among the favorites. Coach Sam Hallam will lead the team at the third World Championship.
A year ago, they won bronze medals after four years without placing on the podium.
The line -up is almost completely completely out of the NHL players – except for 19 players from the best league in the world, only the attackers Anton Bengtsson from the home Rögle BK and Jesper Fröden from Zurich Lions, Switzerland, got into the team.
The extremely experienced team is very similar to the one that started at the February tournament of four nations.
The strength of the team is confirmed by the fact that the second oldest in the tournament. There are up to 13 thirty in the team. In addition, the Swedes brought the top team to the tournament among all 16 participants.
Goalkeepers
All three goalies have over 190 cm and catch in the best league in the world. The expected unit is Jacob Markström, who dropped out with New Jersey Devils in the first round of the playoff.
The 35-year-old goalkeeper was worried about injuries in the season, but did not refuse an invitation to the Stockholm championship.
Markström represented Sweden four times at the World Cup, last in 2019 and helped win gold in 2013. His back will cover Samuel Erson of Philadelphia Flyers and ARVID Söderbl of Chicago Blackhawks.
Defenders
The defensive leader is an uncompromising Rasmus Andersson. So far, twenty -eight -year -old Swede has only worked in Calgary Flames, which drafted him in 2015 out of 53 places.
Among the Swedish defenders this season scored the most goals (11) and scored the most points (31). With the support of the offensive, he will be helped by young Simon Edvinsson of Detroit Red Wings (7+24).
The defense includes defensive specialists Jonas Brodin from Minnesota Wild and Marcus Pettersson of Vancouver Canucks, as well as another experienced defender Adam Larsson from Seattle Kraken.
Attackers
Especially the three Filip Forsberg, Mika Zibaned and Lucas Raymond will take care of the goals in the opponent’s network. The first two crossed the 300 NHL goals, 23-year-old Raymond from Detroit Red Wings already has almost a hundred goals in the best league in the world (98 goals).
There are other experienced guys – Centri Mikael Backlund (Calgary Flames) and Elias Lindholm (Boston Bruins).
The first played more than a thousand NHL matches and the second has exactly 900.
Last time Slovakia conquered Sweden at the World Championship in Latvia 19 years ago (5: 2)!
Forecast of the match
In the first match, especially for debutants at the World Championship awaits fire. Dalibor Dvorský, who grew up in this country from 9 years, has taken care of extra motivation in the matches against Sweden.
It will be extremely challenging in confrontation against a team composed of experienced NHL players and will match the course of the match.
Vladimír Országh’s men will try not to pour in the first period. Any goal in Sweden will be a success for a low experienced team of Slovakia and the final result will indicate the team’s ambitions at the championship.
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