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It came down to a shootout. The surprising Swiss team led by NHLers like Nino Niederreiter, Timo Meier, Sven Andrighetto, and Roman Josi pushed the powerhouse Sweden team to the brink in the gold medal game at the 2018 World Hockey Championships in Denmark.
Filip Forsberg scored for Sweden at one end of the ice, giving them a 2-1 advantage. At the other end, Anders Nilsson waited for Niederreiter to take the final shot for Switzerland.
Nilsson didn’t bite on the fake shot, stuck with the deke to the forehand, and blockered away Niederreiter’s shot. A moment later, Nilsson tossed away his helmet and was tackled by his teammates. For the first time in his career, Nilsson was a champion.
The result and his performance stand in stark contrast to his season with the Canucks. After years of being a backup, Nilsson likely signed in Vancouver because he saw an opportunity to battle for the number one job with his fellow countryman Jacob Markstrom. He got off to a great start, posting two shutouts in his first three games, then struggled and once again wound up as the backup.
Nilsson’s .901 save percentage was 50th among the 56 goaltenders who played at least 20 games last season. While the Canucks weren’t great defensively in front of Nilsson, Markstrom was able to post a league-average .912 save percentage behind the same defence.
With that type of performance, Nilsson understandably lost the trust of his coaches. Green memorably lambasted Nilsson at one practice in late December, yelling at him to “Stop the [expletive] puck!” and “Get in [expletive] shape!”
Is it any wonder that Nilsson was eager to play for Sweden at the World Hockey Championships and try to end his season on a more positive note?
Nilsson wasn’t perfect in the tournament — he gave up two bad goals to Latvia in the quarterfinals — but he came up big in several key games. He made 30 saves on 31 shots against Russia in the final game of the preliminary round to secure the top seed in Group A. Against the top-scoring Team USA in the semifinals, he posted a 41-save shutout.
He made 25 saves in the gold-medal game, including an enormous save on Kevin Fiala in overtime, then stopped four of five shooters in the shootout to take home the gold. Nilsson’s .954 save percentage led the tournament and he was named to the All-Star Team.
His performance had some wondering about his future with the Canucks. Should the Canucks expect greater things out of Nilsson in training camp? Would it increase his trade value if they wanted to move him? Just what does that type of performance mean when it comes to the NHL?
Unfortunately, it likely doesn’t mean much at all.
The truth is that the World Hockey Championships is largely about getting hot at the right time. Nilsson has had fantastic stretches like this in the past, even at a previous tournament. In 2014, he put up a .938 save percentage to take Sweden to the bronze medal. The issue for Nilsson has always been consistency and he’s never been able to maintain that consistency long-term.
While it’s possible that another NHL team might look at Nilsson’s tournament and try to acquire him, it’s far more likely they’d be justifiably scared off by his performance over a full season in Vancouver.
When you look at goaltenders that have led the World Hockey Championships in save percentage in the past, you see names like Henrik Lundqvist, Connor Hellebuyck, and Sergei Bobrovsky. But Nilsson's closest comparable is more likely someone Jhonas Enroth, who backstopped Sweden to a gold medal with a .956 save percentage, but was a career backup in the NHL.
At this point in his career, it’s a lot more likely that Nilsson is akin to Enroth than any of the Vezina-caliber goaltenders from past World Hockey Championships. Both Nilsson and Enroth posted great numbers as backups at different points of their careers — they even both played in Buffalo — but they were never able to turn that into long-term success and faltered when given more starts.
Nilsson could certainly bounce back from last season, which was the worst of his career, but expecting him to turn the corner and battle for the number one job is too optimistic.
Big Numbers
7 - Bo Horvat tied for fourth on Team Canada with 7 points in 10 games. Horvat did his part in the medal round, scoring a goal against Switzerland and assisting on Canada’s only goal against the USA as they lost the bronze medal game.
3 - The Canucks have won just three playoff games since 2011. The Vegas Golden Knights, in their first year of existence, have won 12 and will play for the Stanley Cup. The Finals kick off on May 28th.
Stick-taps and Glove-drops
A well deserved stick-tap to the Vegas Golden Knights. By advancing to the Stanley Cup Final, they’ve gone from a feel-good story to being the ire of Cup-starved fans around the league, but they deserve every ounce of success they’ve wrenched out of this season. They’re the best story in sports right now.
I’m dropping the gloves with the negative nellies who claim that the expansion draft rules were unfairly favourable to the Golden Knights. Even after the draft, nobody thought Vegas would even be a playoff team, so that type of judgement reeks of hindsight and sour grapes.
