Just a few days after the United States named their first 15 players that will heading to the IIHF Men’s World Championship that will be held in the Czech Republic next month, Sweden has followed suit by announcing their roster, which includes Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Samuel Ersson.
Välkomna till VM-truppen 👏
Samuel Ersson ✅
Isac Lundeström ✅
Fabian Zetterlund ✅🗞️ Läs mer om VM-klara spelare från NHL på 👉 https://t.co/uBZH7pPanQ pic.twitter.com/5YdAAZriRJ
— Tre Kronor (@Trekronorse) April 26, 2024
The Swedes will be partaking in the upcoming Euro Hockey Tour tournament in the Czech Republic that is set to take place between May 2nd and 5th and will incorporate practice matches between Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. The World Championships will take centre stage between the 10th and the 26th but it’s a good preseason type event for the European countries.
Ersson will be joining two Minnesota Wild goaltenders in Jesper Wallstedt and Filip Gustavsson, perhaps indicating that he has a very good opportunity at being named the starting netminder for the World Championships. He will need to oust Gustavsson, who has done an admirable job in Minnesota, but things should become more clear once the Euro Hockey Tour comes to a close.
Rasmus Dahlin, Jonas Brodin, Erik Karlsson, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Alexander Holtz are some of the other standout names that will be representing the Tre Kronor.
Ersson’s 2023-24 season was a tale of two halves that unsurprisingly came to light after Carter Hart left the club. He sported a 12-5-3 record with a .911 SV% and a 2.25 G.AA with 3 shutouts as Hart’s backup and then once thrust in as the de-facto starter with no competent backup behind him, Ersson went 11-14-4 with an .876 SV% and a GAA just north of 3.
(Heather Barry Images, LLC)
In fact, Ersson finished off the season going 2-5-1 in his last 9 games with an .848 SV% and allowing 28 goals along the way – he was pulled twice. All this coming after a superb stretch of 17 games at the beginning of the season where he went 12-3-2 with a .930 SV% and a 1.82 GAA. He started 32 of the last 36 games and was essentially run into the ground by the time the playoff picture had settled.
Gustavsson went 20-18-4 with 3 shutouts, an .899 SV%, and a 3.06 GAA after posting a 22-9-7 record last year with a scintillating .931 SV% and a 2.10 GAA. Wallstedt, on the other hand, is the future in goal for the Wild as the 21-year-old and former first round pick from 2021 posted a 22-19-4 record with a .910 SV% and a 2.70 GAA in 45 games in the AHL. He also played in 3 NHL games, going 2-1-0 with an .897 SV%.
Sweden was defeated in the Quarterfinals in last year’s event by Latvia – who wound up defeating the Americans in the Semifinals. The Swedes have not had much success in recent years either as they finished 5th in 2019, 9th in 2021, and 6th in both 2022 and 2023. They did, however, win back-to-back gold medals in 2017 and 2018 and had medaled 6 times in a span of 9 years between 2010 and 2018.
