Fair points. But Sweden came at us in the first period and dominated as I expected them to from the get-go, just didn’t follow it up and we adjusted. I thought after the first eight minutes that we lose 7-2 or something.
It seemed at times that we beat them mentally, not because they were executing badly. Looked like we counteracted their initial dominant onslaught. And if your game plan is counteracted by another team that plays tactically smart, it gets difficult. Plus there were the unlucky bounces. We had one against us as well - Krejcik own goal 20 second after which we equalised - which I thought would break our team. 1-2 behind against this Swedish Defence we an Italy feared game ober.
But instead the other lucky goal off the referee to make it 3-2 seemed to break the Sweeds for a while.
We also committed a major foul that deserved 5+20 and was overlooked then (Rutta is now suspended for the final). After that, the referees MASSIVELY overcompensated for Sweden (non-faul by Rutta, tons of Swedish trips not called, like the crazy glaring one on Pastrnak, etc), which should have raised Sweden’s confidence. We know IIHF refs are terrible against absolutely every team but after the Rutta missed call, it was insane. I cannot understand this experienced Sweden team did not take advantage.