Sedin Twins Power Sweden to World Championship Gold

 
Henrik Sedin gives a post game interview after scoring two goals in a championship victory.
Image courtesy RadioSporten.

The Sedins were widely criticized for "no showing" in the NHL playoffs earlier this month, as the Vancouver Canucks were eliminated in short order at the hands of the San Jose Sharks. The criticism was a bit much, considering the failure of Vancouver’s penalty-kill and the fact that the twins had a couple of really good games (games two and three) despite limited support from the rest of the Canucks lineup…

Following the inglorious playoff ouster, the Sedins joined team Sweden at the World Hockey Championships which were hosted in both Sweden and Finland this year (and last year too for that matter). In four games in the tournament the twins and linemate Loui Eriksson carried team Sweden offensively, giving the Tre Kronor a vicious, explosive power-play that powered the Swedes past Canada, Finland and Switzerland in the elimination rounds, and all the way to a gold medal victory on home soil. I suppose it’s a nice way to cap off a disappointing – albeit quietly impressive season – on a winning note.

Read past the jump for more.

Against Team Canada on Thursday, the Sedins led the Swedish power-play to two third period goals erasing a one goal third period deficit to force overtime and eventually a shootout. While the twins missed, and missed spectacularly, in the skill competition the Swedish team prevailed when Canada’s fourth shooter Jordan Eberle hit a post.

On Saturday against the Finns, Henrik Sedin racked up three points (two primary assists and an empty net goal) while Daniel accumulated two. Henrik’s feed on Loui Eriksson’s second goal of the game was a stone cold beauty, right from Gretzky’s office (you can check it out at 1:15 of this video). The Swedes defeated the Finns by a score of three-to-zero.

On Sunday, in the gold medal game against the upstart Swiss – a team that hadn’t medalled at this tournament since 1953 – the Swedes fell behind early on a Roman Josi goal. But they rallied, with Henrik Sedin netting the game winner and adding a short-handed empty-net tally for good measure. 

In all Henrik Sedin ended the championship game with three points, while his brother was held off the scoresheet (which, come to think of it we don’t often see when Henrik has a three point game). Henrik was also named to the all tournament team.

Here’s the highlights from Sunday’s final:

You’ll notice that Henrik gets pretty soundly burned by Roman Josi on the Swiss goal. Meanwhile it’s hard to imagine how Daniel Sedin wasn’t credited with an assist on Henrik’s game winner (at :30 of the above video).

The win wasn’t without incident for the Sedin twins as Daniel was rather dangerously checked into an open door at the Swedish bench relatively late in the third frame. Luckily he seemed no worse for wear when celebrating the victory, and he’ll now have four and a half months to rest off any lingering soreness. Still, this hit could’ve been a lot worse: