Helene St. James

Detroit Free Press

Gustav Nyquist has done at the international level what he struggled to do for the Detroit Red Wings.

Nyquist scored in overtime today, leading Sweden past Latvia, 2-1, in a preliminary world championship game in St. Petersburg, Russia.

It wasn't as fun of a day for Wings teammate Dylan Larkin, whose U.S. squad got hammered by Canada, 5-1.

“We need to learn some lessons from tonight’s game, and we’ve got to be better,” U.S. coach John Hynes told the Associated Press. “We like our character, we just need to be a little bit more mature in our game.”

Finland (Teemu Pulkkinen, two shots in 14:01 minutes of ice time) routed Belarus, 6-2. Russia (Pavel Datsyuk, two shots, 18:02, and Alexey Marchenko, 17:16) was blanked by the Czechs, 3-0.

Sure, it was only a prelim game -- and Latvia hardly is a hockey power -- but the preliminary round determines who moves on to play for a medal. (There are two groups each of eight, each team plays seven preliminary games, and the top four teams in each group advance to the knockout round.)

Nyquist scored four goals at the 2014 world championship, helping Sweden to a bronze medal. He does not have as impressive of springtime stats with the Wings, with just four goals and eight points in 34 playoff games.

His feat today no doubt was cheered by Nyquist the horse, which is the favorite to win Saturday's Kentucky Derby. The colt was named after Nyquist.

Other local players: Former Wing Mattias Ritola had four shots on goal for Sweden. ... Former Wolverine Kyle Connor assisted on the U.S.'s only goal. His U-M linemates, Tyler Motte and J.T. Compher, both were minus-1.

Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.