Nurse's overtime winner helps Canada past Sweden, into semis of women's hockey worlds

By the skin of its teeth, Canada is into the semifinals at the women's hockey world championship.

The two-time defending champions survived a determined Sweden squad with a 3-2 overtime win on Thursday in Brampton, Ont. They'll play the winner of Thursday's final game between Switzerland and Japan on Saturday with a spot in Sunday's gold-medal game on the line.

Sarah Nurse sent the CAA Centre crowd into a frenzy, taking a cross-ice pass from linemate Sarah Fillier and burying it from the top of the circle past Sweden goalie Emma Soderberg, who made 51 saves in a losing effort.

Sweden, which hadn't scored against Canada since 2004, evened the score with 9.2 seconds remaining in regulation, the second straight game in which Canada's surrendered a late lead in the dying seconds.

A mad scramble in front of the net saw the puck filter to Hilda Svensson in the slot, and she made no mistakes.

Canada outshot Sweden 48-14 in regulation, and 6-0 in overtime.

Blayre Turnbull scored Canada's opening goal, dashing down the right side and putting moves on both a Swedish defender and Soderberg before finishing through the five-hole.

Nurse doubled Canada's lead on a second-period power play, firing a snapshot above Soderberg's blocker.

Sweden's Lina Ljungblom cut the lead to one by second intermission with tournament-leading seventh marker on the power play.

Ljungblom's goal came on Canada's fourth penalty of the period and second for an illegal hit.

A chippy game throughout saw plenty of physical play from both sides — something many Swedish players are used to after their domestic league legalized bodychecking this past season.

Saturday's other semifinal will pit the U.S., which beat Germany 3-0, against the Czech Republic, who took