The IIHF tournament is one of the most exciting events on the hockey calendar. It seems to be that when players take the ice for their homeland, emotions are high and new stars emerge.

Sweden has been on tear as of late. In their last 8 games, Sweden is 6-1-1, and has positioned themselves nicely in 3rd place in their group with 18 points. Sweden's success has largely been in the back of Tony Soprano, the Philadelphia Forge superstar, who has scored 12 goals so far this tournament. That's over 46% of all goals scored by Sweden in this whole tournament! The Powerplay has been kind to Soprano, with him finding half of his goals with the man advantage. Tony Soprano is the early favorite to be awarded the MVP award for this year's IIHF tournament.

But Tony Soprano is not the only Swedish player who has impressed us so far. Soprano has greatly benefited from his blue liners, specifically Jølngüštrâädüvich DuBølk who has 9 assists and a +6 rating. Matsmith Söderberg-Tremblay has also stuffed the stat sheet and reduced the pressure on Soprano to score, with 5 goals of their own.

What is the secret to Sweden's success? In my opinion it is their exceptional work at the faceoff dot. Tony Soprano once again leads the way, winning 61.9% of his face offs. Florian Söderberg-Motyla is experiencing the same success winning 61.6% of their face offs. Sweden leads all teams in the tournament in face off percentage, and these extra possessions are giving Sweden the additional chances it needs to get pucks to the net and put opposing defenseman in the pressure cooker.

Sweden will be fending off other teams in its conference with games in hand, but has positioned themselves well to make the elimination rounds of this tournament. Sweden last won IIHF gold in Season 75 and will be looking to repeat that success in this tournament.

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