MILAN \u2014 William Nylander was absent from practice Tuesday on the eve of Sweden\u2019s Olympic men\u2019s opener with host Italy, raising a bit of concern about the Toronto Maple Leafs star who had battled a groin injury earlier this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a maintenance thing,\u201d head coach Sam Hallam said after practice. \u201cHe\u2019s done two full ice practices with us and felt, after yesterday, a bit sore, so we\u2019ll just give him an extra day. And then we\u2019ll see for tomorrow if he\u2019s ready to go. It\u2019s going to be a pretty late decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nylander did return for the Leafs and played three games before the Olympic break. But as Hallam said, Nylander felt sore after practice Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot overly concerned at all,\u201d said Hallam. \u201cHe\u2019s been looking really sharp and good on the ice for two days. We felt that we\u2019d give him today. It\u2019s a short tournament, but we\u2019re still in the beginning of it and (have) bigger games coming up, so let\u2019s keep our priorities in focus there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sweden has full health otherwise, which includes veteran leaders Victor Hedman and Gabriel Landeskog. Both are ready to go, Hallam said.<\/p>\n
Sweden goalie question<\/p>\n
Hallam wouldn\u2019t yet confirm his Game 1 starter in goal.<\/p>\n
Jacob Markstrom has the pedigree, Filip Gustavsson has the best form going in the NHL this season, while Jesper Wallstedt is the kid breaking through.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat question\u2019s been up there pretty much all year, and I\u2019ve said nevertheless which three goalies we\u2019re going to pick to this group and to the Olympic squad, I\u2019m confident playing either one of them,\u201d Hallam said. \u201cThat\u2019s still the feeling, but of course we have made our decision. We\u2019re not going to announce that until tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Based on practice Tuesday, it seemed like Markstrom was in the starter\u2019s net. But again, Hallam wouldn\u2019t tip his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big decision. I mean, do you go on form? Do you go on how many games and what you have under your belt? It\u2019s different,\u201d Hallam said. \u201cBut I feel confident in all three. They look good, and hopefully we make the right decision there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Swedes have rival Finland on Friday in their second game. So that\u2019s the other layer to it \u2014 which goalie does Sweden want for what should be an easy opener with Italy compared to the always tough matchup with Finland?<\/p>\n
Gustavsson probably deserves to be the starter overall in the tournament based on form, but the career body of work argument for Markstrom will be at play.<\/p>\n
Relieved Andersson<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a world in which Rasmus Andersson could have been here on the Olympic stage, still wondering about his NHL future.<\/p>\n
But thankfully for him, his expected trade happened before the Olympics last month, which allows him to be here in Milan without that weighing on him.<\/p>\n
Relieved?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, but it\u2019s kind of boring for you guys, eh? You don\u2019t have to write about me anymore (smiles),\u201d Andersson said with a chuckle.<\/p>\n
And for full transparency, Andersson was speaking directly to me, because I am guilty as charged for the many Andersson trade updates we did on TSN\u2019s Insider Trading since last June.<\/p>\n
Still, in all seriousness, it was nice to have the trade from Calgary to Vegas go down before the Olympic competition begins.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously I\u2019m super excited about joining Vegas,\u201d said Andersson. \u201cThe skill on that team is through the roof. I\u2019ve said it from the start, I think they\u2019re a real contender. That\u2019s where I wanted to go. But at the same time, everyone knows how grateful I was about the Calgary Flames and everything they did for me. Yeah, it\u2019s been a whirlwind the last 10 to 12 days or whatever, it\u2019s tough, my family is still in Calgary and obviously I don\u2019t get to see them for a little while. I\u2019m fortunate enough that my wife is flying in here in a couple of days. It sucks that I can\u2019t see my kids for about six weeks. That part is tough. But I\u2019m trying to have the full focus here on Team Sweden and I\u2019ll kind of deal with all the other stuff when I get back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lessons from 4 Nations<\/p>\n
Adrian Kempe didn\u2019t sugarcoat it. Adjusting to the pace of best-on-best last February at 4 Nations was a real thing. And it was a great lesson in what awaits Sweden on the Olympic stage with all the top NHL players here.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat first 10 minutes against Canada is one of the fastest 10 minutes I\u2019ve ever played in my career,\u201d Kempe said Tuesday about the 4 Nations opener last February. \u201cIt was fun but also a little bit of a \u2018wow\u2019 moment where you kind of feel that best on best tournament. After those first 10 minutes, I think we played 15 minutes really solid. I think we responded to that really well. So I think we\u2019re a little bit prepared for what\u2019s gonna come now. Obviously a couple different opponents throughout the tournament but as the tournament goes on, we\u2019re gonna play really good teams. It\u2019s a good experience to have, I think, that we played in the 4 Nations last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sweden lost in overtime to Canada in that opener and beat the U.S. in the finale of the round robin, a game that didn\u2019t hold any meaning for Team USA.<\/p>\n
But still, from a Swedish perspective, while they didn\u2019t make the 4 Nations final, they came away from it confident that they can compete with the co-favorites from the U.S. and Canada for gold in Milan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely learned that we can play with any team,\u201d Jesper Bratt said Tuesday. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who the team is that we\u2019re playing against. Even if it\u2019s Canada in overtime or U.S. or Finland or whichever team it is, we can play with any team. We can win any game, and I think that\u2019s just the confidence level on this team that we know from past experience, we\u2019re just going to grow and we\u2019re going to get even better than we were last year. It\u2019s just a lot of excitement in the group.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 William Nylander was absent from practice Tuesday on the eve of Sweden\u2019s Olympic men\u2019s opener with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5106],"tags":[5,20,5172,54125,4,2602,66,31,5171,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-453709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-maple-leafs","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-maple-leafs","10":"tag-mapleleafs","11":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-olympics","14":"tag-toronto","15":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","16":"tag-torontomapleleafs","17":"tag-vegas-golden-knights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116048619494325328","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}