Norway Stun Sweden 3-2 With Two Shorthanded Goals

Norway delivered one of the biggest shocks of the 2026 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship on Saturday night, beating Sweden 3-2 at BCF Arena in Fribourg behind two shorthanded goals. 5,417 fans witnessed the underdogs leapfrog Sweden in the Group B standings.

How it unfolded

Norway opened the scoring on the power play at 9:32 of the first period. Noah Steen finished from Eskild Bakke Olsen and Petter Vesterheim to give the Norwegians an early lead.

Sweden answered on their own power play at 2:23 of the second period when Ivar Stenberg buried a feed from Jack Berglund and Viggo Bjorck to tie it 1-1. The momentum looked Sweden's way, but Norway turned the period upside down at 13:15. With Tre Kronor on the power play, Noah Steen broke loose for a shorthanded marker assisted by Havard Ostrem Salsten to make it 2-1.

Sweden pushed back in the third. Lucas Raymond evened the game at 3:10 of the third period for 2-2 and the comeback looked on. But the Norwegians struck again with a man down. At 9:11, Eirik Salsten took a feed from Martin Ronnild and beat Arvid Soderblom shorthanded to put Norway back in front 3-2.

The closing minutes turned tense. Sweden took two roughing minors at 13:16 but Norway killed both, then pulled Arvid Soderblom for an extra attacker at 17:40. Henrik Haukeland and the Norwegian defense closed it out.

Goaltenders

Henrik Haukeland was outstanding in the Norwegian net, helped by his penalty kill which surrendered just one Swedish power-play goal on multiple opportunities and produced two goals the other way. Soderblom took the loss for Sweden.

Coming up

Norway leap up to 10 points in Group B and overtake Sweden into fourth place, holding the final quarterfinal spot. Sweden drop to fifth on 9 points and now face Italy on Tuesday and Slovakia on Tuesday-night to keep their tournament alive. Norway play Denmark in their final group game on May 26.