Roster
| NAME | POSITION | AGE | LEAGUE | TEAM |
| Daniel Alfredsson (a) | RW | 41 | NHL | Detroit Red Wings |
| Nicklas Backstrom | C | 26 | NHL | Washington Capitals |
| Patrik Berglund | C | 25 | NHL | St.Louis Blues |
| Jimmie Ericsson | LW/RW | 33 | SHL | Skelleftae |
| Loui Eriksson | RW | 28 | NHL | Boston Bruins |
| Carl Hagelin | LW | 25 | NHL | New York Rangers |
| Marcus Kruger | C | 23 | NHL | Chicago Blackhawks |
| Gabriel Landeskog | LW | 21 | NHL | Colorado Avalanche |
| Daniel Sedin | LW | 33 | NHL | Vancouver Canucks |
| Henrik Sedin (a) | C | 33 | NHL | Vancouver Canucks |
| Jacob Silfverberg | RW | 23 | NHL | Anaheim Ducks |
| Gustav Nyquist | RW | 24 | NHL | Detroit Red Wings |
| Alexander Steen | LW | 29 | NHL | St.Louis Blues |
| Henrik Zetterberg (c) | LW | 33 | NHL | Detroit Red Wings |
| Alexander Edler | D | 27 | NHL | Vancouver Canucks |
| Oliver Ekman-Larsson | D | 22 | NHL | Phoenix Coyotes |
| Jonathan Ericsson | D | 29 | NHL | Detroit Red Wings |
| Niklas Hjalmarsson | D | 26 | NHL | Chicago Blackhawks |
| Erik Karlsson | D | 23 | NHL | Ottawa Senators |
| Niklas Kronwall | D | 33 | NHL | Detroit Red Wings |
| Johnny Oduya | D | 32 | NHL | Chicago Blackhawks |
| Henrik Tallinder | D | 35 | NHL | Buffalo Sabres |
| Jhonas Enroth | G | 25 | NHL | Buffalo Sabres |
| Jonas Gustavsson | G | 29 | NHL | Detroit Red Wings |
| Henrik Lundqvist | G | 31 | NHL | New York Rangers |
Strengths
Sweden will enjoy an embarrassment of riches in every position. Their main strength will be their play-making ability. A quick glance at their roster is enough to immediately place them in medal contention, however a similarly strong roster failed to finish top 3 in Vancouver, eventually ending up in 5th place.
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A highly skilled crop of forwards, headlined by Henrik Zetterberg, the Sedin twins, and Gabriel Landeskog should create havoc for opposing defencemen. Sweden possesses a great crop of support forwards, although their depth up front is not quite comparable to either Team Canada. Henrik Lundqvist will be the starter, and Sweden will lean on him to repeat his 2006 gold medal-winning performance.
The defence corps is quite mobile, which means that Sweden should have absolutely no problems clearing their zone, or activating d-men on the pinch.
Weaknesses
Although quite mobile, the defence corps lacks a little bit of grit. Players like Kronwall and Hjalmarsson should add a physical element to the blue line, but they are at risk of having a hard time clearing the crease if their opponents happen to set up in their defensive zone. The omission of Victor Hedman becomes even more confusing when you take a closer look at their deficiencies. Hedman is responsible in both sides of the ice, and could have added a little more punch to their physical prowess. As it stands, Hedman is probably the worst omission of any Olympic squad.
Victor Hedman 20 points in last 20 games, top 10 in scoring among NHL defencemen, but not on Sweden’s Olympic team?
— Brad Ziemer (@BradZiemer) February 1, 2014
An injury to Johan Franzen means that the forwards also lack the pugnacity of other teams. His replacement Gustav Nyqvist will definitely help out on the puck possession side of things, but he’s not known to go to the dirty areas like Franzen.
That being said, Sweden shouldn’t suffer much from their lack of truculence, seeing as the games will be played on international sized ice.
The lack of a high-end back up is also somewhat of a grey area for the Swedes.
X-Factor
Goalie Henrik Lundqvist will have to be sharp, as he’s always been in the Olympic games. However he’s put up mid-pack numbers in the NHL for the Rangers, and will have to up his game if Sweden hopes to finish in the top 3.
There are no glaring weaknesses on Team Sweden’s roster besides perhaps a lack of physicality, which means If all goes to plan they should definitely threaten for gold. Besides, Olympic Rosters really shouldn’t be built like an NHL team. Sweden is the complete package, and have arguably the best roster on paper, even with the omission of Hedman.
Par Marts is their coach, and to be honest I don’t know enough about him to comment on his potential influence on the team. He did manage to coach Sweden to a gold medal in the 2013 World Championships.
One thing is for sure, Sweden has a tendency to either win gold or finish 5th, at least according to their results in the last 6 Olympic Games (5th, Gold, 5th, 5th, Gold, 5th).
Unfortunately for the Swedes, Henrik Sedin will not be attending the games, as he’s had to pull out due to a rib injury. He will be replaced by Marcus Johansson. This is a huge blow to Team Sweden.
