Erik Karlsson came at the King and he did not miss.
The Rangers’ Stanley Cup hopes — and Sweden’s gold-medal dreams — were nearly extinguished when the Swedish forward crashed into goalie Henrik Lundqvist during a team practice in Sochi.
Karlsson made contact with Lundqvist after chasing Loui Eriksson on a breakaway, quieting the training rink at Bolshoy Ice Dome as Lundqvist laid on his back.
According to the Detroit Free Press, the Rangers goalie skated over to the boards and watched the rest of practice, but declined to speak with reporters afterwards.
A team doctor told Sportbladet that Lundqvist is “fine.”
“That’s a tough thing,” Daniel Alfredsson told the paper, “because he really wanted to catch Loui on the breakaway and threw himself down, and Henrik was trying to make the save, and they just pummeled each other. We can laugh at it now because it wasn’t too serious, but it gave everybody a big scare.”
After nearly sidelining the country’s star player, Karlsson couldn’t have felt worse.
“I said sorry 500 times approximately,” Karlsson told Sportbladet. “But I think it went well. It was probably me who got hurt the most.”