After USA qualified for their first final at the Ice Hockey World Championships in 91 years at the expense of Sweden, it was up to Denmark to defend the Scandinavian colors at the Globen Arena where they didn’t have the luxury of playing in front of their own passionate crowd as earlier in the tournament.
The Danes went into the match hot on the trail of five successive wins but were put under immediate pressure by the Swiss favorites who also defeated the Danes 5-2 in the preliminary round.
Patrick Fischer’s outfit created several great opportunities in the opening stages of the match and were rewarded for their initial dominance after nine minutes, when Nino Niederreiter steered the puck between the legs of Danish goalkeeper Frederik Dichow.
Switzerland then made the most of their momentum just three minutes later, when Ken Jäger was extremely fortunate to see a close-range shot deflected off Dichow and Markus Lauritsen into the net.
Bad then turned to worse for the shell shocked Danes, when Nino Niederreiter scored his second goal of the match as the ruthless Swiss punished the Danes for a two-minute penalty to Patrick Russell.
The Danes were then handed a golden opportunity to get back into the match when they enjoyed a 5 on 3 situation after two successive Swiss two-minute penalties, but the visibly deflated Danes could not turn their numerical advantage into goals on the scoreboard against a well-organized Swiss defense.
And while the Danes were hoping for a lifeline going into the final period, the Swiss then added to their advantage two minutes before the end of the period, when Denis Malgin cleverly skated past Jesper Jensen to lift the puck into the roof of the net and make it 4-0.
In the third period Sandro Schmid, Damien Rat and Tyler Moy added three goals to complete the misery for the Danes as the Swiss for the first time in the history of the World Championships booked their second successive ticket to the final.