Swedes rebound

ByReuters

Published 18/02/2006 at 18:57 GMT

Sweden trounced Latvia 6-1 at the men's Olympic ice hockey tournament on Saturday as the appearance of forward Peter Forsberg sparked a sputtering offense. Sweden were crushed by Russia 5-0 just two days ago, but looked like a completely different team against the Latvians.

ICE HOCKEY 2006 Torino 2006 Sweden-Latvia Naumovs

Image credit: Reuters

A large part of the reason was the electrifying Forsberg, who sat out the first two games of the tournament while nursing a groin injury back to health.

ICE HOCKEY 2006 Torino 2006 Sweden-Latvia Naumovs

Image credit: Reuters

Despite the layoff it did not take much time for the 32-year-old Swede to find his game, assisting on Samuel Pahlsson's goal at 14:20 of the first period.

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A string of Latvian penalties opened the floodgates in the second period, with Niklas Lidstrom, Daniel Alfredsson, and Per Johan Axelsson -- with an assist by Forsberg -- all scoring power play goals in a three-minute span early in the second period.

Henrik Zetterberg made it 5-0 before the period was half over and Alfredsson added his second at 4:48 of the third.

Maris Ziendins broke Henrik Lundqvist's shutout bid at 9:10 of the final period.