Sweden clinch Ice Hockey WC 2017 title

Sweden clinched the Ice Hockey World Championship 2017 title beating defending champions Canada by 2 goals to 1 in tiebreaker in the final match of the tournament.

Both the teams contested hard to grab the victory but the stipulated time of the match ended in a 1-1 draw leading to extra 20-minutes play.

Finally, the fate of the match was settled by decisive shootout.

Nicklas Backstrom and Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored for Sweden in the shootout while the Swedish goalkeeper Henrik Lundqvist stopped all four shots he faced from the Canadians resulting the World Championship gold medal for his country since 2013.

Canada, who won the title in the last two consecutive World Cups had to be satisfied with silver this time.

It was the second time of shootout in the World Championship final after 1994 when Canada beat Finland.

Earlier, at the end of second session, Backstrom took a penalty and scored the first goal of the match, which took Sweden into 1-0 lead.

Victor Hedman backhanded the puck on goal from the blue line merely trying to get the puck deep on the penalty kill, but it bounced and floated and dribbled between Pickard’s pads with only 20.8 seconds left in the period, reported IIHF.

Immediate after beginning of the third session Canada levelled the match. Marner took a shot and O'Reilly got the rebound. His shot went off Lundqvist's stick, off his mask, over his shoulder, and in at 1:58 to even the count at 1-1.

Both the teams made attacks and counter attacks during the remaining period of the match but failed to score even during the extra time and finally the match rolled into a tiebreaker.

Meanwhile, Russia won bronze in the tournament beating Finland by 5 goals to 3.

Finland lost to Sweden in the semi-finals of the tournament while Russia lost to Canada.