Anaheim Ducks<\/a> prospect Lucas Pettersson netted two third-period goals, leading Sweden past Switzerland 4-2 in preliminary play of the World Junior Championship on Sunday.<\/p>\nPettersson, selected No. 35 by the Ducks in 2024, broke a tie at 6:28 of the third period, finishing a setup from Liam Danielsson and Eric Nilson to put Sweden ahead for good. Pettersson, who signed with the Ducks on June 13, and helped Sweden to a bronze medal at the 2024 Under-18 World Championship, added an empty-net goal with 47 seconds left as Switzerland pressed late with the extra attacker.<\/p>\n
Sweden opened the scoring 53 seconds into the game, when Nilson beat his man off a pass from Leo Sahlin Wallenius. Switzerland answered midway through the first when Beni Waidacher tied the score at 14:27 after a setup by Leon Muggli and Daniil Ustinkov.<\/p>\n
The Swiss took their only lead late in the second period, when Lars Steiner scored at 18:22, snapping a shot past Love Harenstam to make it 2-1.<\/p>\n
Momentum shifted early in the third. Viggo Bjorck tied the score 57 seconds into the period, finishing a play from Alfons Freij and Anton Frondell before Sweden pushed the pace for the remainder of regulation.<\/p>\n
Harenstam finished with 21 saves on 23 shots for Sweden, which held a 23-20 edge in shots. Elijah Neuenschwander stopped 19 shots for Switzerland.<\/p>\n
Sweden will face the United States on Wednesday, and Switzerland will play Germany on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Finland 8, Latvia 0: Emil Hemming scored twice as Finland cruised to a shutout in preliminary-round play.<\/p>\n
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Finland struck early and never relented, holding Latvia to only four shots on goal while scoring three times in the opening period to take control.<\/p>\n
Hemming opened the scoring at 4:11 of the first period, finishing a pass from Matias Vanhanen to put the Finns ahead. Finland doubled the lead less than two minutes later, when Jasper Kuhta scored his first goal of the tournament, slipping a shot through the legs of Mikus Vecvanags to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n
Max Westergard added another late in the period as Finland carried a 3-0 lead into the first intermission.<\/p>\n
The Finns continued to pull away in the second period. Hemming scored again on a two-man advantage after consecutive Latvian penalties, and Joona Saarelainen followed later in the period to extend the lead to five.<\/p>\n
Finland added three more goals in the third period. Roope Vesterinen scored early, Heikki Ruohonen followed midway through the period and Lasse Boelius capped the scoring with 9:29 remaining.<\/p>\n
Petteri Rimpinen stopped all four shots he faced to earn the shutout for Finland, which finished with a 27-4 edge in shots. Vecvanags made 22 saves for Latvia despite facing steady pressure throughout.<\/p>\n
Finland continues preliminary play against Czechia on Monday. Latvia faces Denmark on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dec 28, 2025, 05:34 PM ET ST. PAUL, Minn. — Anaheim Ducks prospect Lucas Pettersson netted two third-period…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-375403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}