World Hockey Championship | Sweden beats USA 5-2 in opener

(Prague) The United States lost 5-2 to Sweden in its first game at the World Hockey Championship on Friday.

Joel Eriksson Ek had two goals and an assist, while Victor Hedman provided a goal and an assist for Sweden. Filip Gustavsson stopped 28 shots in this Group B match played in Ostrava.

Trailing 3-2 in the third period, the Americans were already playing on the power play when they replaced goaltender Alex Lyon with an extra attacker. However, Hedman scored with 59 seconds left. Eriksson Ek added his second goal of the match by also scoring into an empty net with six seconds left on the clock.

Zach Werenski and Brock Nelson scored for the Americans.

The Swedes took a 2-0 lead thanks to goals from Eriksson Ek in the first period and Lucas Raymond in the second period.

Werenski cut the lead to a single goal midway through the second period, but Marcus Johansson responded for Sweden.

Nelson scored the United States’ second goal 3:43 into the third period.

In a Group A match in Prague, the Czech Republic defeated Finland 1-0 in a shootout.

Earlier in the day, Germany defeated Slovakia 6-4.

Dominik Kahun, Jonas Muller, Lukas Kalble, Marc Michaelis, Leonhard Pfoderl and Tobias Eder scored for Germany, while Philipp Grubauer stopped 35 shots.

Marek Hrivik, Martin Fehervary, Libor Hudacek and Matus Sukel responded for Slovakia, which outshot its rivals 39-22, including 18-7 in the third period.

Montreal Canadiens forward Juraj Slafkovsky collected two assists.

In another Group A match, Switzerland scored three times in the second period en route to a 5-2 victory over Norway.

Nino Niederreiter led the charge for Switzerland with a power play goal and an assist.

At the end of the preliminary round, the four best teams in each group will advance to the quarter-finals.

Russia and its ally Belarus are excluded from the tournament for a third year in a row due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.