Sweden defeated Denmark 10-1 in the first game on the last day of the group stage at the 2026 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Men’s World Championship.
Elton Hermansson led the Swedish offence with two goals and four assists, while new linemates Alexander Command and Marcus Nordmark and defenceman Malte Gustafsson had three points each.
“This was our first game together,” Hermansson said of playing with a couple of fellow top-rated draft prospects. “It’s fun playing with them, and I thought the second and third periods, we had really good chemistry out there.”
Sweden outshot Denmark 39-7 in the game. Anton Wilde, who was brilliant in goal for Denmark in games against Germany and the USA, didn’t get as much help from his teammates in this one. He stopped 22 of 30 Swedish shots before Victor Damgaard mopped up for the second day in a row.
The Swedes entered the day with the possibility, however slight, of ending up in the relegation game. With the win, they will finish third in Group B behind the USA and Czechia, the two teams that beat them. With three points, the Danes are not completely safe from finishing fifth in Group B – they need the USA to beat Germany in the group’s finale.
“We knew they’re a good team and today we lost to a better team,” said injured Danish captain Martinus Schioldan, who says he will be back in the lineup for the team’s next game. “I think (the Swedes) came in hungry, trying to get some momentum for the playoffs. We saw that they came out strong and we couldn’t hold them back. The guys did a good job trying to hold them down but they were just better today, and that’s why they won.”
Wanting to put the game away as quickly as possible, the Swedes scored twice in the first minute of the game and led 4-0 by the 12-minute mark.
Hermansson scored first at the 32-second mark by banging in a rebound, and Nils Bartholdsson made it 2-0 at 59 seconds by capitalizing on a turnover in the Danish zone. Command made it 3-0 at 10:45 on a delayed penalty by taking a centring feed from Mads Gudmundsson and making a nice move to his backhand, and Wiggo Sorensson made it 4-0 1:09 later on a nice individual rush, beating a defenceman wide and then Wilde on a backhand deke.
“We had good energy heading into the game and overall a good feeling,” said Command. “We talked a lot about the energy and pushing each other in the locker room after the last couple of games, and I think we did that today and got a good win out of it.”
With just 20 seconds remaining in the period, Denmark managed to get on the board on a Noah Hulsig breakaway, beating Kevin Tornblom high to the blocker side.
Sweden added two more goals in the second period. Early in the period, defenceman Axel Elofsson found Mikeal Kim on a backdoor play off an attacking-zone faceoff win, and midway through, 2027 draft prospect Bosse Meijer scored on a shorthanded breakaway to make it 6-1.
After individually being relatively quiet through the team’s first three games and the first two periods of this game, the newly-assembled line of Hermansson, Command and Nordmark broke out in the third period – with Nordmark scoring twice and the other two scoring once – to give Sweden this tournament’s most one-sided result so far.
“It’s the first time the three of us are playing together and it was nice chemistry and we played well, so we’ll see what happens in the playoffs, but it’s a really great line, definitely,” said Nordmark.
