Lundqvist brilliant as Sweden advances to semifinals

With a 3-0 win by Team Russia against Team Finland on Thursday at Air Canada Centre, a shot at the semifinals vanished for Team North America.

When Nathan MacKinnon deked Henrik Lundqvist out for a highlight-reel overtime goal and got mobbed by teammates, he couldn’t be happier.

They came into the World Cup of Hockey as something of an afterthought. Team Russia is moving on and Team North America is eliminated. He’s proud of his global success and wants to end it with a World Cup of Hockey championship.

“Honestly when I scored, I thought we were in”, MacKinnon said. Me and “A-Matts” were talking, maybe we shouldnt have “celly’d” that hard. But if we lost, we were out. “That’s totally understandable. But … everyone in our locker room believed in ourselves, knew we could do something”.

The North American team may have started as a gimmick, but the way it played forced the naysayers to come around.

The dominant Canadian super squad secured a berth in the semifinal round with Wednesday’s 4-1 finish over the European all-star team. If Russia can not beat Finland, then North America advances. The young men seem to be enjoying themselves as a team and hope to play together again.

It took all of 30 seconds for McDavid to feed Morgan Reilly, who in turn found Matthews for the first goal of the game. We entertained and we’d like a chance to continue that. The Finns will be very proud.

“I have two boys at home, 17 and 21, and they don’t have to be told to go out and win. They’ll show up and play”.

The biggest takeaway from Team North America is that these players are incredibly talented and will help grow the sport of hockey going forward. Auston Matthews and Vincent Trocheck staked North America to a 2-0 lead within the first 95 seconds. North American coach Todd McLellan refused to pile on the USA for going 0-2 but praised his young Americans, who blended well with young Canadians Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Colton Parayko and others. In the win over Sweden, McDavid was a skating highlight reel as he blew past Norris Trophy victor Erik Karlsson for a breakaway on one play split a pair of defenders on another.

Lundqvist made 45 saves, giving him a total of 80 in two straight games after missing the opening game for Sweden due to illness.

Sweden overcame an early two-goal deficit to clinch first place in Group B and a spot in the semifinals by getting to overtime and earning a single point.

“Wake the f– up”, said Karlsson. And dammit, the kids did it again, even if it was likely their last call.

Karlsson said the message on the bench was to “wake the bleep up”.

Disappointingly, Larkin didn’t even dress for Wednesday’s dramatic overtime win vs. Sweden, sitting in favor of J.T. Miller. The NHL has not decided whether or not it will participate in South Korea in 2018, but it’s clear which way McDavid is leaning.

North America has quickly become the darlings of the 2016 World Cup of Hockey which is the third tournament of its kind in history and the first since 2004. “But we’ve got some faith in the Finns to give us a win”.

And they went out with a flare.

“I think our defense was jumping a little bit too much and got too involved in the offense”.

“Those are a lot of guys that are going to be playing for the USA and Canada real soon”, U.S winger Zach Parise said. “But I didn’t think we’d have as big an impact on the hockey world as we have had so far”. Good for the Swiss and the Slovenes, maybe, but would that enhance interest in the event for the larger audience, who fell in love with the daring approach of the Young Guns?