{"id":384581,"date":"2026-01-03T00:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T00:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/384581\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T00:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T00:51:07","slug":"world-junior-championship-roundup-frondell-sweden-advance-to-semifinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/384581\/","title":{"rendered":"World Junior Championship roundup: Frondell, Sweden advance to semifinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sweden 6, Latvia 3: Anton Frondell<\/a> (Chicago Blackhawks) scored two goals for unbeaten Sweden in the quarterfinal round at Grand Casino Arena.<\/p>\n

Leo Sahlin Wallenius (San Jose Sharks) had a goal and two assists, Alfons Freij (Winnipeg Jets) had two assists, and Love Harenstam (St. Louis Blues) made 13 saves for Sweden, which advanced to the semifinal round on Sunday.<\/p>\n

“We have a lot of good players on the team that like to shoot and have a really high quality in the shots,” Frondell said. “So, we shouldn’t pass too much. We’ve been shooting it and it’s been working out good. So that’s important.”<\/p>\n

Kristers Ansons, Martins Klaucans and Olivers Murnieks (all 2026 eligible) each scored, and Nils Maurins (2026 eligible) made 32 saves for Latvia, which was outscored 24-8 in four straight regulation defeats following a 2-1 overtime loss to Canada in its tournament opener.<\/p>\n

Sweden eliminated Lavia in the quarterfinal round for the third time in the past five tournaments, winning 2-1 at the 2022 WJC and 3-2 at the 2025 WJC.<\/p>\n

“We played Sweden,” Latvia defenseman and projected first-round pick in 2026 draft Alberts Smits said. “That’s a very tough team to match but it all started from 0-0 so I don’t know, there’s a lot of emotions going on in my in my body right now and in my mind. So we just had to be better if we wanted to win.”<\/p>\n

Frondell gave Sweden a 1-0 lead 10 seconds into the first period on a tip-in from the slot.<\/p>\n

Ansons made it 1-1 on a power-play goal at 13:07 into the first on a snap shot from the left face-off circle.<\/p>\n

Jack Berglund (Philadelphia Flyers) put Sweden in front 2-1 at 16:15 of the first. Lucas Pettersson (Anaheim Ducks) curled behind the Latvia net and fed Berglund from the left post for the shot from the slot.<\/p>\n

Sascha Boumedienne (Winnipeg Jets) pushed it to 3-1 on a shot from the point at 14:05 of the second period, and defenseman Felix Carell (2026 draft eligible) made it 4-1 on a one-timer from the high slot 1:45 later.<\/p>\n

Frondell extended it to 5-1 at 1:58 of the third period. Klaucans scored to pull Latvia within 5-2 at 3:50. Wallenius made it 6-2 at 15:54, before Murnieks (2026 eligible) scored a power-play goal for Latvia at 18:10 for the 6-3 final.<\/p>\n

“We need to be humble, calm, not focusing on what may happen if we win out here, but just focus on what we can control, what we can do,” Frondell said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sweden 6, Latvia 3: Anton Frondell (Chicago Blackhawks) scored two goals for unbeaten Sweden in the quarterfinal round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-384581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}