🇩🇪 Germany 4-3 Sweden 🇸🇪 (OT)
Olympic Quarterfinal
Kwandong Hockey Centre, Gangneung 🇰🇷
Wednesday, 21 February 2018

Sweden rallies from 2-0 and 3-1 deficits but loses in overtime. The loss is the greatest upset in Olympic hockey since 2002 when Belarus beat Sweden, also 4-3.

Patirck Reimer drove hard to the goal, skated around three Swedes in the process, and banged his own rebound past goalie Viktor Fasth just 90 seconds into a 10-minute four-on-four overtime to give Germany an improbable 4-3 victory over Sweden.

To add to the drama, the play went to video review to determine if the puck had crossed the goal line. It had.

“I just saw some space opening up toward the net,” Reimer said. “I tried to take it there. It worked out. Somehow I got that extra bounce and worked it in. I knew right away they couldn’t call that off. I was pretty confident, but still, it was intense waiting for the official call.

The win is the greatest for the country since 14 February 1976, when it beat the United States 4-1 to earn its only Olympic medal, a Bronze. But that was as West Germany.

Since Germany became one country in 1990, there is no result that comes close to tonight’s shocker. The team raced to a 2-0 lead, fought hard to make it 3-1 midway through the third, and blew a two-goal lead before Reimer’s heroics.

‘I’m proud of the guys, how they played, how they worked,” said Marcel Goc. “We had a couple of huge blocks from our guys. We tried everything we had, and it was enough today. In OT, everything can happen. One lucky bounce or one deflection and the puck goes in and the game is over. Reimer made a really nice move, I thought, took the puck to the net and put it in.”

This was not vintage Tre Kronor of Forsberg and Sundin and Sedins and Bäckström. This was more like Tva Kronor (two crowns) or Ett Kronor (one crown). Sweden is going home, and Germany will play Canada in the semi-finals, the winner going for Gold, the loser for Bronze.

Either way, Germany will play for a medal, a possibility no one could have taken seriously two weeks ago.

“It’s huge for our sport,” Goc continued, “especially at the Olympics. It’s not just World Championships, where it’s just hockey or hockey fans. It’s a big platform for us. This game was live in Germany, too. It was a good time. It’s a good advertisement for us. I hope we got some more fans.”

“We’re really just excited that we have a chance to play for a medal,” Goc summed up. “This is a dream come true for us. We might need a few minutes here or a night to let it set and understand what we did here. For us, it’s a huge step forward. Four years ago we didn’t qualify to go to Sochi. This time, I thought we played a great qualification. It’s started to pay off, the work we put in.”

“We battled for each other, blocked every shot,” offered Yannic Seidenberg. “Even when they came back, tying it up late in the third, we didn’t stop believing. We knew we were going to get our chances if we chipped the puck by them. At the end we just had a lucky bounce. I’m unbelievably happy that we won.”

Sometimes number can be deceiving. They don’t tell the whole story even while they appear to. Consider the shots on goal totals for the first period. The numbers show the Swedes outshot Germany 15-10. Nothing special, right? Wrong.

The Swedes got 13 of their shots before Germany got its first. Sweden had an early power play and several great scoring chances, but they couldn’t bulge the twine.

Then, inexplicably, as if a switch went off, Germany gained some confidence, and then got a power play. They took 10:10 to register their first shot, but at 13:48 they opened the scoring when veteran Christian Ehrhoff’s floating point shot drifted under the arm of Fasth for a stunning goal.

Just 29 seconds later, they scored again! This time it was Marcel Noebels, who was in the right place at the right time to flick a loose puck past a scrum at 14:17 to make it 2-0 Germany.

In all, Germany had ten shots in a row before Sweden got a couple of late ones on Danny aus den Birken, but the shots totals didn’t tell the story of this improbable 2-0 lead for the massive underdog Germans.

One would think a team like Sweden, with such a long and rich history of winning, would have re-grouped in the first intermission and came out flying to start the second. Well, that didn’t happen.

In fact, Germany had a good chance early, and then at the three-minute mark had a most extraordinary flurry of five shots at goal in about as many seconds. Fasth made two great saves and three shots narrowly missed the target, but it was clear by now the Swedes just didn’t have that high gear to switch to when they needed it.

Shots on goal in the second was a conservative 5-4 for the Germans, who protected their lead well without falling into a defensive shell.

In the third the tone changed as soon as Sweden coach Rikard Grönborg put out 17-year-old Rasmus Dahlin for his first shift of the night. The Swedes had good pressure, and on Dahlin’s third shift his point shot wound up in a scramble in front where Anton Lander put it in.

Two minutes later, though, Dahlin was caught up ice on a rush and Dominik Kahun beat Fasth from a distance with a wrist shot going the other way. That gave the Germans a 3-1 lead with 11:32 remaining.

But Sweden came back on a power play a minute later, Patrik Hersley wiring a one-timer to cut the lead in half.

The Swedes completed their comeback at 11:37 when Mikael Wikstrand’s long wrist shot went all the way past a screened aus den Birken. That set the stage for overtime and Reimer’s historic heroics.

BOXSCORE
1st Period
03:30 – 🇩🇪 PEN – Ehrhoff, hooking
09:18 – 🇸🇪 PEN – Everberg, interference
13:13 – 🇸🇪 PEN – Everberg, kneeing
13:48 – 🇩🇪 PP GOAL – Ehrhoff (Hager, Schütz)
14:17 – 🇩🇪 GOAL – Noebels (Kink)

2nd Period
28:32 – 🇩🇪 PEN – Macek, interference

3rd Period
46:25 – 🇸🇪 GOAL – Lander (Dahlin, Omark)
48:28 – 🇩🇪  GOAL – Kahun (Mauer)
49:28 – 🇩🇪 PEN – Schütz, slashing
49:35 – 🇸🇪 PP GOAL – Hersley (Omark, Wikstrand)
51:37 – 🇸🇪 GOAL – Wikstrand (Zackrisson)

Overtime
61:30 – 🇩🇪 GOAL – Reimer (Ehliz, Boyle)

GOALTENDERS
W: 🇩🇪 aus den Birken (31-34)
L: 🇸🇪 Fasth (21-25)

SHOTS ON GOAL
🇩🇪 10+5+8+2 = 25
🇸🇪 15+4+15+0 = 34

ROSTERS
🇩🇪 Goaltenders: Danny aus den Birken, Timo Pielmeier. Defence: Daryl Boyle, Christian Ehrhoff (A), Frank Hördler, Björn Krupp, Jonas Müller, Moritz Müller. Forwards: Yasin Ehliz, Gerrit Fauser, Marcel Goc (C), Patrick Hager, Dominik Kahun, Marcus Kink (A), Brooks Macek, Frank Mauer, Marcel Noebels, Matthias Plachta, Patrick Reimer, Felix Schütz, Yannic Seidenberg, David Wolf.
🇸🇪 Goaltenders: Jhonas Enroth, Viktor Fasth. Defence: Simon Bertilsson, Rasmus Dahlin, Johan Fransson, Erik Gustafsson (A), Patrik Hersley, Staffan Kronwall (A), Mikael Wikstrand. Forwards: Dick Axelsson, Alexander Bergström, Dennis Everberg, Anton Lander, Pär Lindholm, Joakim Lindström, Joel Lundqvist (C), Oscar Möller, John Norman, Linus Omark, Fredrik Pettersson, Viktor Stålberg, Patrick Zackrisson.

Article Credit: PyeongChang 2018
Photo Credit: PyeongChang 2018 – IIHF – HHOF – IOC