Czech Republic vs Sweden Prediction: Czechs to win second match at the tournament

The next match of the 2022 IIHF World Championship will take place on May 15, 2022 at 20:20 (UTC+3), with Czech Republic facing Sweden at Tampere Deck Arena.

Team Czech Republic failed in all recent major international tournaments, and at the Olympics in Beijing, they crashed out as early as the round of 16. After that, the Czech hockey governing body took the unpopular step of appointing a foreign coach for the first time in their history. Finn Kari Jalonen took over, under whose guidance the Lions excelled in both stages of the Euro Hockey Tour, and now they will try to achieve success at the 2022 World Championship. The Czechs suffered a long game against the British, opening the scoring only halfway through the second period, but eventually secured a comfortable 5-1 victory.

Team Sweden are playing the last tournament under the leadership of Johan Garpenlov, who has threatened to go down in local hockey history as one of the worst mentors. Having realized that, even before the Olympics in Beijing, he decided to steal notes from Jukka Jalonen, so he suddenly decided to forgo technical and skillful players in favor of bigger and more defensive hockey players. All the above helped Tre Kronor make it to the Olympic semifinals, but they did not win a medal again, and in their debut game at the 2022 World Championship, the Yellow and Blues suffered a 3-1 victory over Austria, playing very boring and unspectacular hockey.

The Czech national team, under the leadership of Kari Jalonen, has already held two matches against the Swedish national team, winning both times, 9-3 and 2-1. Thus, they are the favorites to win the upcoming confrontation, having a more powerful squad. The Tre Kronor coaching staff, it appears, continues to rely on players from the NHL, so the day before, they had only three lines in the lineup. Even in the game with the Austrians, all the players were already tired, and the Czechs quietly and without any trouble defeated the British. As a result, we have to consider betting on the victory of Team Czech Republic with the odds of about 1.90.

• Team Czech Republic won the last six matches in a row;
• Team Sweden won four of their last five games;
• Team Czech Republic has beaten Sweden in both head-to-head encounters under Kari Jalonen, 9-3 and 2-1.

Team Sweden in the current state is a team that tends to resemble the Finnish team, showing a reliable game near their goal, and they will try to score their two or three goals in attack. The Czech Republic's new head coach is Finnish Kari Jalonen, who is also a carrier of the Finnish game system, so you shouldn't expect flashy, giddy hockey from him, either. Given that the Swedes and Czechs are direct competitors for the tournament spots, no one would want to make a mistake, so the best option seems to be Total Under (4.5) pucks at odds close to 2.20.

Roman Cervenka, at the age of 36, continues to show excellent personal statistics. He played in 52 games for Rapperswil in the last regular season, recording a total of 63 points (20 goals + 43 assists). Just think about it: this figure is his personal best in the Czech forward's rich career. He got off to a flying start at the World Championship, racking up three assisted goals in his first game. Obviously, the veteran does not plan to slow down, so we would expect Roman Cervenka to score more than 0.5 points at odds of about 1.75.

Our prediction: The Czech Republic will win the match at odds of 1.90 on the line Bet365.

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