Selanne Has Finns Flying Past Sweden

The battle for Scandinavian supremacy--not to mention a semifinal berth in the Olympic hockey tournament--produced an unlikely winner Wednesday night.

Mighty Duck right wing Teemu Selanne broke up a scoreless game with two goals in the third period as Finland stunned Sweden, 2-1, to reach Friday’s semifinal against Russia, which defeated Belarus, 4-1, in the first game of the doubleheader at Aqua Wing.

While the U.S. was being eliminated by the Czech Republic at Big Hat, Finland produced an even bigger surprise in an arena awash with the nationalistic fervor of Finnish and Swedish fans waving their flags.

Forward Jere Lehtinen of Finland and the Dallas Stars ranked it with the world championship of 1995 and the Olympic bronze of ‘94--the Finns also won a silver in ‘88--as one of his country’s greatest wins.

“It belongs in the top three,” he said. “If you check all the lineups of the teams competing here, there are probably five better than ours--on paper,” he said. “No one gave us a chance, but that’s the way we like it.”

Said Selanne: “The big thing tonight is that we played tough defense. If we play to that same level, I believe we can beat anyone.”

But does the magnitude of the win and his part in it help to remove some of the sting from the Ducks’ long season?

“If we win a medal here, that would help,” he said, smiling, “but we have a ways to go yet. We have to beat Russia first.”

Selanne, who is tied for the Olympic scoring lead, scored the game’s first goal at 4:12 of the third period when he roared in from the right side on New York Islander goalie Tommy Salo, faked a pass to Saku Koivu on the left, then lifted the puck over the sprawled goalie.

“It’s a nice feeling to score no matter when and where, but this was especially nice,” Selanne said.

He scored again at 12:43 as the Finns took advantage of a power play to produce the goal that would prove decisive, with Koivu finding only Selanne keeping a helpless Salo company near the side of the crease.

There were only 12 seconds left when Finnish goalie Jarmo Myllys, who had a goals-against average of 5.23 during an NHL career that ended in 1991-92, lost his shutout on a goal by Peter Forsberg of the Colorado Avalanche.

Lehtinen saluted Selanne later.

“He’s probably the best goal scorer in the game,” he said. “We know our role is to get him the puck whenever we can.”

Koivu, the Montreal Canadien center, thought Sweden missed hard-checking defenseman Ulf Samuelsson, who was disqualified this week for having both a U.S. and Swedish passport, which invalidated his Swedish citizenship.

“There seemed to be a lot more room [in the area around their goal],” Koivu said. “It was a good ruling for us and a bad ruling for them, but they created it.”

Said Barry Smith, an assistant coach with Sweden and the Detroit Red Wings: “We weren’t the same group tonight. I don’t know if the Samuelsson issue was a factor. That whole thing went on for 24 hours and may have been a distraction. We didn’t play together and our attitude wasn’t good. It just shows that any team can win on a given night.”

Sweden’s Daniel Alfredsson, who plays with the Ottawa Senators, dismissed the Samuelsson situation.

“I don’t think that affected us at all,” he said. “We were waiting for something to happen instead of taking control and it cost us the game. It’s a huge disappointment. It’s very sad.

“The Swedish people expected us to reach the finals, as we did. We have a better team than Finland, but they played a better game tonight.”

Teammate Mattias Norstrom, of the Kings, agreed.

“For a potential gold-medal team not to play to that level is very disappointing,” he said. “We let Finland dictate. If you play in your own end long enough, you’re going to get hurt.”

Sweden, indeed, may have missed Samuelsson in that regard, or it may have been the tough defense Selanne cited.

Ultimately, Sweden got off only 17 shots.

In the first game, Russia improved to 4-0 as goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov, Selanne’s teammate on the Ducks, blocked 25 of 26 shots and is now 60 of 63 in his three games.

“So far we haven’t faced Canada, the U.S., Sweden or any of the good teams in this tournament,” Russia’s Sergei Fedorov said early on a night when two of those three teams lost, “but I’d have to say that our goaltending has been very solid.

“We’re comfortable and confident with it. Mikhail has given us what we’ve needed.”

A different and dissension-riddled Russian team was blown out of the 1996 World Cup. This team came to the Olympics as something of an unknown quantity.

Defenseman Sergei Gonchar, who plays with the Washington Capitals, conceded: “I think we’ve surprised ourselves the way we’ve played. No one was counting on us.”

Russia beat Finland, 4-3, during the round-robin phase. Fedorov, whose season has been reduced to the Olympics as he holds out in a contract dispute with the Red Wings, said he doesn’t care who they play because his team has been gathering momentum and confidence and that chemistry among the players and management is far improved over ’96.

“The only thing that bothers me is when we play like individual all-stars like we did early tonight,” he said. “We have to play our game right from the start. We have to approach every game and every period the same.”

Few would have approached the possibility of a semifinal game between Russia and Finland, with Selanne now taking aim at Shtalenkov in the game within that game.