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Hanna Olsson scored, Ebba Traff Svensson stopped 29 shots and Sweden upset Czechia 2-0 on Friday to advance to the semifinal round of the Olympic women’s hockey tournament for the first time in 12 years.
Hilda Svensson sparked a huge celebration at Sweden’s bench, sealing the victory by scoring an empty-net goal with 25 seconds remaining.
Sweden entered the quarterfinals as the tournament’s sixth seed after going 4-0 through preliminary round play to win the Group B title. And the Swedes knocked off a Czech team that finished third in Group A play, behind the U.S. and Canada.
The 21-year-old Traff Svensson won her fourth game and recorded her second shutout in her Olympic debut in an outing during which Sweden was outshot 13-5 in the third period alone.
Czechia’s Klara Peslarova finished with 21 saves.
Top-seeded and tournament-favoured U.S. plays Italy in the day’s other quarterfinal. On Saturday, Canada plays Germany and Finland faces Switzerland in a matchup of Group A’s fourth- and fifth-place teams.
Olsson scored a power-play goal 4:47 into the second period with a one-timer from the left circle while catching Peslarova out of position. The goalie was caught too high up in the crease and as Peslarova reached back, Olsson’s shot deflected in off her blocker.
Sweden had not advanced to the semifinals since finishing fourth at the 2014 Sochi Games. And the nation is in position to earn its third Olympic medal, and first since winning silver at the 2006 Turin Games, when Sweden upset the U.S. in the semifinals.
The Swedes entered the tournament with raised expectations while featuring a young, talented roster made up of a core of the team that won silver at the 2018 Under-18 championships.
There are eight players 22 and younger, with seven currently competing at U.S. colleges. They include Hilda Svensson, the 19-year-old Ohio State freshman, who’s tied for seventh in the nation with 44 points (15 goals, 29 assists) in 26 games.
And Sweden knocked off a physical and experienced Czech team that won two bronze medals and finished fourth twice over the past four world championships. Czechia was making just its second Olympic appearance but seeking to build off its seventh-place finish at the 2022 Beijing Games.
The Czechs had difficulty finding a level of consistency through a preliminary round in which they blanked Finland 2-0, but lost a 4-3 shootout decision to Switzerland. Czechia managed just seven goals in five games despite a roster featuring eight Professional Women’s Hockey League players, including rookie of the year candidate Kristyna Kaltounkova, who leads the league with 11 goals.
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