Sweden picked up a second victory in its U18 World Championship defence – but it took a huge effort to shake off a brave Slovakia. The Swedes led 3-1 going into the last 10 minutes, but two quick Slovak goals changed the complexion of the game completely.

In a nerve-jangling finale, Anton Wahlberg grabbed the all-important game-winner for Sweden with three minutes to play. A 5-3 final score puts the Tre Kronor clear at the top of the group with two wins from two, while Slovakia is in third place thanks to Thursday’s OT success over Czechia.

"I think we played better but we took some bad penalties and they scored some goals," summed up David Edstrom, one of Sweden's scorers on the night. "After that, we gathered as a group and came back in it and got the goal we needed.

"We just got together on the bench and said ‘this is our game, we’ll turn this around’, and that’s what we did."

Slovakia got off to winning start in Ajoie with an in-yer-face approach to its game against the Czechs, and Tibor Tartal’s team looked to repeat that against Sweden. The opening minutes were breathless, with the teams playing at a high tempo and Slovakia eager to move the puck fast and push forward at every opportunity.

This time, though, that enthusiasm was Slovakia’s undoing. Frantisek Dej took an unnecessary tripping call in the offensive zone, and the power play saw Sweden opening the scoring. Theo Lindstein exchanged passes with Zeb Forsfjall then squeezed a shot through heavy traffic to beat Samuel Urban.

"We played with good speed and we will stick with that," Slovak head coach Tartal said. "However, we allowed a strong opponent to get on the power play, and they got up to speed."

Once in front, Sweden settled into its attacking game. Gustaf Kangas hit the piping and after a delay of game call on Maxim Strbak, Axel Sandin Pellikka potted a second power play tally. This one was a laser-like wrister into the top corner from the top of the right-hand circle, taking him to 6 (2+4) at the head of the tournament scoring race.

"It’s not something that I really think about," Sandin Pellikka said of his scoring form. "We have a good power play, Noel Nordh is really good in front of the net. He makes the goalie not see the shot and I just try to get it into the corner."

Slovakia doesn’t lack for tenacity, though, and its first power play of the game saw Juraj Pecarcik pull a goal back. His big celebration highlighted how much it meant to his team, but Sweden engineered a swift response when Otto Stenberg picked out Edstrom wide open at the back door to make it 3-1 at the first intermission.

There was no further scoring in the second period, but Sweden continued to enjoy the better of the game. Urban had an anxious moment in the Slovak net when he lost the puck to Noel Nordh behind the net, but the goalie recovered in time to prevent Simon Zether from adding a fourth. Slovakia’s brightest moments came on a power play midway through the session, but Sweden – notably defender Axel Landen – exerted a tight grip on Dalibor Dvorsky and his colleagues.

However, if there was a blemish on Sweden’s performance on the night, it was a failure to build on its lead. That looked potentially costly with eight minutes to play when the Slovak power play forced a second goal. Dvorsky brought the play into the zone and found Patrik Masnica, who roofed a shot into the top corner. Sweden challenged the play, citing offside in the build-up, but a video review gave it the thumbs up.

"The goal was a great moment for me," Masnica said. "It doesn't happen every day. Overall, it was a good, balanced game and it's great that we were able to compete with them. We have to learn from the mistakes that cost us goals."

Now Slovakia had another power play and that momentum carried through to a tying goal. Sweden was just returning to full strength when Roman Kukemberg converted Daniel Jencko’s feed from behind the net.

"I don’t know what happened," admitted Sandin Pellikka. "We took some stupid penalties and they took energy from that. They pushed us down in our zone and we weren’t accurate enough in the D-zone. They got a lot of pucks in the middle, and got them to the net.

"After that third goal, we talked a lot on the bench, we were screaming at each other. And after that we came out really strong."

Strong indeed. Sweden conjured a winner thanks to Wahlberg, and then did a good job of closing out the remaining time. Slovakia could not withdraw Urban from his net until there were just 45 seconds left, and when he went to the bench Felix Unger Sorum wrapped it up with an empty-net tally.