QUEBEC -- For reasons that remain as mysterious as the unlisted ingredients in a Swedish meatball, the Tre Kronor crowd was actually favoured to beat Team Canada last year in Moscow.
Just as it does for this year's world hockey championship, the Swedish roster offered no hint of the Sedins, Markus Naslund, Mats Sundin, Mattias Ohlund, Nik Lidstrom, Peter Forsberg or Henrik Zetterberg in 2007. But Canadian head coach Andy Murray was preaching underdog status to anybody who would listen.
"We'll be the outsiders," he said on the eve of last year's semifinal.
It sounded just this side of justifiable, since the Swedes were not so fresh off doing the double, winning Olympic and world championship gold in 2006, beating Canada en route to the latter title. But the puck dropped and Murray's ruse was laid bare as Canada spanked the Swedish no-names 4-1.
Flip through an entire calendar and the setup appears eerily similar today: Canada and Sweden for a medal, colour TBD. This time around you've got a Warg, a Frogren, a Ledin, a Fabricius, a Liv and a Fernholm. But there are a few more souls you might actually recognize this year, like Nicklas Backstrom, Henrik Lundqvist, Robert Nilsson, Alexander Edler and Douglas Murray, the Swede in Scottish clothing.
On balance, coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson's roster is not quite as full of anonymous though perfectly capable players from Timra, Farjestads, Linkopings, Brynas, Frolunda and Farjestads as it was in Moscow.
But here's the kicker: Almost nobody outside their room is picking them to win. This year's Swedes have more NHLers than last year's team, but less of a chance to beat Canada?
Lundqvist thinks observers might be focused on the glittering names on the back of the Canadian jerseys while Sweden is all about the crest on the front.
"They have a lot of NHL players and star players. On the lineup, yeah, I think they have a better team," conceded Lundqvist, Sweden's signature stopper. "I'm not sure they play better as a team. That's been our strength -- not the whole tournament, the last four games.
"That's our only chance -- playing very solid as a team."
In hindsight, it was their only chance last year against a less powerful collection of Canadians and they came up woefully short. So Team Canada enters this game as the clear favourite, like it or not. And it's not because they're at home, as that actually works against the hosts in this tournament's history. It's because they are bigger, more skilled and deeper at all positions, though Lundqvist owns an edge over Pascal Leclaire in net.
That Canada meets the Swedes at exactly the same moment on the tournament calendar for a third straight time is cause for reflection. The Canadians were 7-0 last year, as they are now, but the Swedes were 6-1, with only a loss to Russia to sully their record. This year, the Swedes lost a pair to Russia and Switzerland and it was the latter debacle that forced a team meeting and a renewed commitment to the team game. They are still going on ad nauseam about it.
"It's a total concept. It's not a one-man show," Gustafsson said. "It's not going to be one or two guys that win this game for us; it's the group."
They have been a group for much of the season and played in plenty of high-pressure tournament games like the one they face today. Canada's Shane Doan said the Swedes' familiarity might lend itself to continuity and chemistry.
"At the same time, we feel pretty comfortable with our chemistry," said the captain.
-- Canwest News Service
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