TURIN, Italy – Henrik Lundqvist, Olympic gold medal winner, said it will take time for one of the two greatest realities a player can enjoy in a hockey life to seem real.
“I don’t think we’ll know how big this is for the next couple days,” he said, the precious round ring dangling from his neck looking awfully good on a good guy and, yesterday, an even better goaltender. “When I’m sitting on the flight back to New York, I probably will be staring at this and just smiling.”
Lundqvist smiles and New York smiles, too, about a player leading the Rangers out of seven seasons in a big sand. In first place in their division, they are dreaming the other dream, the Stanley Cup, the rest of the world now understanding why.
The stick save Lundqvist made coming across for a rebound that had dropped at Oli Jokinen’s feet with 15 seconds remaining, preserving Sweden’s 3-2 victory over Finland, is now part of Swedish hockey lore.
“I don’t even know how I got it,” said Lundqvist, who made 25 saves in the game. “But it was one of the most important saves of my career, I think.”
Assuredly it was the most dramatic, but ultimately no more important than ones Lundqvist made down the stretch on a walkout and a redirection by Teemu Selanne, on two blasts off the wing by Jere Lehtinen, on Kimo Timonen through a screen.
The Finns threw Helsinki at Lundqvist in the final seven minutes. When the puck went to center with five seconds left, he jumped up and down like no guy needing time for this to sink in.
“So many emotions,” Lundqvist said. “I had a lot of pressure coming into this tournament, a lot of people expected me to play well.
“When I got back here, I felt the difference of the big rink. I let some strange goals in the whole tournament, but at the important times stepped up.
“When [Nicklas] Lidstrom scored [10 seconds into the third period] I tried not to look at the clock. When you start to feel a gold medal is really close, you focus even more. After a couple years, we are finally back where we belong.”
Actually, it had been 12 years since Peter Forsberg’s shootout goal gave Sweden its last gold medal. And four particularly long ones since Tommy Salo let in an 80-footer by Belarus to kick the Swedes out of the tournament. The liberator and final piece of a skilled team with an outstanding and aging nucleus – Mats Sundin, Forsberg and Lidstrom – was Lundqvist.
“It probably was their last [Olympic] chance and they delivered for sure,” said Lundqvist. “The key was we had four lines and a little luck in the end.”
Lock-the-door goaltending helps make such luck. Lundqvist, who allowed a carom off a point shot by Timonen and had no chance on a Ville Peltonen redirection, wouldn’t have let in another goal if the game had lasted 12 years.
“You work with guys the whole year, I think it’s more emotional to win the Stanley Cup,” Lundqvist speculated. “But this means so much for the whole nation, so I don’t know.
“This year has been unbelievable so far. I just hope I can keep my game where it should be and the [Rangers] can keep playing the way we’ve played.
“Sometimes you have to pinch yourself to understand how lucky you are.”
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YESTERDAY’S MEDALISTS (m)
CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING
Men’s 50km
GOLD: Giorgio di Centa, Italy
SILVER: Eugeni Dementiev, Russia
BRONZE: Mikhail Botwinov, Austria
HOCKEY
Men
GOLD: Sweden (Christian Backman, Niclas Havelid, Kenny Jonsson, Niklas Kronwall, Nicklas Lidstrom, Mattias Ohlund, Ronnie Sundin, Daniel Tjarnqvist, Daniel Alfredsson, Per Johan Axelsson, Peter Forsberg, Mika Hannula, Tomas Holmstrom, Jorgen Jonsson, Fredrik Modin, Samuel Pahlsson, Mikael Samuelsson, Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin, Mats Sundin, Henrik Zetterberg, Stefan Liv, Henrik Lundqvist, Mikael Tellqvist).
SILVER: Finland (Aki-Petteri Berg, Lasse Kukkonen, Toni Lydman, Antti-Jussi Niemi, Petteri Nummelin, Teppo Numminen, Sami Salo, Kimmo Timonen, Niklas Hagman, Jukka Hentunen, Olli Jokinen, Jussi Jokinen, Niko Kapanen, Saku Koivu, Mikko Koivu, Antti Laaksonen, Jere Lehtinen, Ville Nieminen, Ville Peltonen, Jarkko Ruutu, Teemu Selanne, Niklas Backstrom, Antero Niittymaki, Fredrik Norrena).
BRONZE: Czech Republic (Frantisek Kaberle, Tomas Kaberle, Filip Kuba, Pavel Kubina, Marek Malik, Jaroslav Spacek, Marek Zidlicky, Jan Bulis, Petr Cajanek, Patrik Elias, Martin Erat, Milan Hejduk, Ales Hemsky, Jaromir Jagr, Ales Kotalik, Robert Lang, Rostislav Olesz, Vaclav Prospal, Martin Rucinsky, Martin Straka, David Vyborny, Dominik Hasek, Milan Hnilicka, Dusan Salficky, TomasVokoun).
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MEDALS TABLE (after 70 medal events)
Nation G S B Tot
Germany 11 12 6 29
United States 9 9 7 25
Canada 7 10 7 24
Austria 9 7 7 23
Russia 8 6 8 22
Norway 2 8 9 19
Sweden 7 2 5 14
Switzerland 5 4 5 14
South Korea 6 3 2 11
Italy 5 0 6 11
China 2 4 5 11
France 3 2 4 9
Netherlands 3 2 4 9
Finland 0 6 3 9
Czech Republic 1 2 1 4
Estonia 3 0 0 3
Croatia 1 2 0 3
Australia 1 0 1 2
Poland 0 1 1 2
Ukraine 0 0 2 2
Japan 1 0 0 1
Belarus 0 1 0 1
Britain 0 1 0 1
Bulgaria 0 1 0 1
Slovakia 0 1 0 1
Latvia 0 0 1 1
