Three Crowns' first defeat in the World Championship means that the home nation will meet the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals at the Globe on Thursday.
A repeat of last year's World Championship semifinal in Prague, where Sweden suffered a major defeat, 3–7.
It's going to be fun to meet them, the reigning champions, we'll clean up this match, go through what we need to improve and do it better on Thursday, he says.
Boston star Lindholm scored the 1–1 goal for Three Crowns – his seventh goal so far in the World Championship.
Shared goal scoring
With that, he is shared top scorer in the tournament along with superstar Nathan MacKinnon, Canada, and Sven Andrighetto, Switzerland.
It was fun to hang in there, hope it holds. I'm just trying to do as good as I can and now the pucks are going in, he says about his goal- and point-scoring form.
Besides the seven goals, he has also contributed four assists.
But after the first defeat in the World Championship, Lindholm was clearly not satisfied.
"No high-flying match"
Already after 18 seconds, Sweden conceded a goal. After 13 minutes, Sweden was trailing 1–3.
It was no high-flying match from our side. I thought we played sluggishly, didn't get any pace and had too much respect for them. I thought we slacked off quite a bit and gave them freebies here and there, he says.
If you concede five goals to Canada, it's hard to win. That's something we need to do better.
National team coach Sam Hallam also pointed out the lack of pace.
We're not getting the pace in our game, we're struggling throughout the match. We create some periods with pretty big scoring chances, it could have changed the situation if we had utilized that, says Hallam.
He points to areas for improvement against the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals on Thursday:
How we stick together as a team, how we get pace from below, our judgments when we go on forecheck or tighten up. A bit more patience there, he says.
William Karlsson, the new addition from Vegas, was substituted out at the end of the match with cramps.
He didn't give any interviews afterwards, but according to the Swedish team management, there's no concern about him.
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Sven Andrighetto, Switzerland, Elias Lindholm, Sweden, Nathan MacKinnon, Canada, 7 goals.
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Frank Nazar, USA, David Pastrnak, Czech Republic, Eeli Tolvanen, Finland, 6.
Thursday: USA–Finland (Stockholm, 16.20), Switzerland–Austria (Herning, 16.20), Sweden–Czech Republic (Stockholm, 20.20), Canada–Denmark (Herning, 20.20).
Semifinals will be played on Saturday and medal matches on Sunday.
