Sweden edges Russia 3-2 at world juniors

Sweden's Jacob de la Rose, bottom, scores the winning goal past Russia's goalkeeper Andrei Vasilevski in the IIHF World Junior Championship preliminary round on Dec. 31, 2013. (AP Photo/TT/Ludvig Thunman)

MALMO, Sweden -- Jacob de la Rose scored with 2:22 left in the third period to lift Sweden to a 3-2 win over Russia on Tuesday, the final day of round-robin play at the world junior hockey championships.

Sweden, first in Group B with a 4-0-0-0 record, will face Slovakia in Thursday's quarter-finals while Russia (2-0-0-2) will finish either second or third depending on the outcome of the Finland-Switzerland game later Tuesday.

"It feels really amazing right now," said de la Rose. "It was a great goal for us and we really needed it."

Andreas Johnson and Nick Sorensen also scored for Sweden while and Lucas Wallmark had two assists. Alexander Barabanov and Mikhail Grigorenko scored for Russia.

"I thought we were really close to getting three points in this game," Grigorenko said. "It was 2-2, and Sweden was a little bit luckier than us at the end. I guess we had too many penalties today. We can't really do that against teams like that."

Sweden's Oscar Dansk made 23 saves for the Swedes while Andrei Vasilevski stopped 29 shots in the Russian net.

"Obviously our goal was to win the group," said Swedish captain Filip Forsberg. "Now we've done that. But now the tournament really starts with the playoff games. We have to get ready for the quarter-final here."