Kalinin's 2 goals lift Russia over Sweden in OT

Dmitri Kalinin scored with 56 seconds remaining in overtime to lift Russia to a 6-5 win over Sweden on Thursday to open the second round of the hockey world championship.

It was Kalinin's second goal of the game. The 28-year-old defenseman was coming off a two-goal season in 73 NHL games for the New York Rangers and Phoenix Coyotes, and had not taken a shot in his first three games of the tournament.

"He's got some offensive skills," Russia teammate Ilya Kovalchuk said of Kalinin. "He was in the right place at the right time. It was huge for us because we need to win our pool to be the No. 1 team and play not the best team in the quarterfinals."

Also Thursday, Ruslan Salei scored with 25 seconds left in overtime to give Belarus a 3-2 victory over Norway in the group hosted at Zurich.

The second round has split into two groups of six teams with the top four in each advancing to the quarterfinals next week. Results gained in the first round against other teams which advanced will count toward second-stage standings.

Defending champion Russia carried forward a maximum six points but was thoroughly tested by a Sweden team which beat the United States 6-5 in OT less than 24 hours earlier.

"It is painful right now but we have to look forward," Sweden coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson said. "We played a good game and had enough scoring chances to win."

Rickard Wallin gave Sweden an early lead on a rebound after goalie Ilya Bryzgalov pushed away a shot from Kristian Huselius.

Russia tied the game on a power play with a wrist shot from defenseman Ilya Nikulin. Russia led 2-1 at 14:10 when Oleg Saprykin's shot from the circle squeezed through Johan Holmqvist's pads.

However, Sweden retook the lead with goals from Anton Stralman and Niklas Persson, before Kalinin's slap shot brushed a Swedish jersey in traffic and eluded Holmqvist's glove to make it 3-3.

The one-time Tampa Bay Lighting goalie then left the game with a rib injury and was replaced by Jonas Gustavsson, who made 39 saves against the United States on Wednesday.

Sweden led again in the third when Huselius scored through Bryzgalov's pads, but Sergei Mozyakin tied it again 22 seconds later.

Russia got a power-play goal by Vitali Ploshkin with less than three minutes left, but Huselius tied it for the Swedes to force the extra period. Bryzgalov had 33 saves for the win.

"I don't think we played our best game, especially defensively," said Kovalchuk, who had three assists and has nine points for the tournament. "We can't give up five goals. The players here are too good."

In the late game in Group E, Switzerland was to face tournament surprise Latvia, which beat Sweden in a shootout. In Group F, 2007 champion Canada was to play the Czechs.