Last shot for old Swedes Forsberg and Lidstrom

Peter Forsberg is in the Triple Gold Club, a select group of 22 hockey players who have won Olympic gold, world and Stanley Cup championships.

The Swede has a chance to be in an even more exclusive company.

If Forsberg can help his team get to the top of the medal stand in Vancouver, he will be the only member of the group with three Olympic gold medals.

"It would be huge," Forsberg said Monday after Sweden's practice. "This is probably my last shot at it."

Forsberg, who has endured a slew of injuries, is 36 and has acknowledged he's at the end of his career.

Another Swede in the Triple Gold Club, Nicklas Lidstrom, turns 40 in April and may also be taking his last shot at Olympic gold. But he's been dodging retirement talk.

"I haven't thought much about it," said Lidstrom, who scored the gold-medal winning goal against rival Finland four years ago in Turin. "It's something I'll think about after the (NHL) season is over."

Forsberg lifted Sweden to its first Olympic gold medal in 1994 - the last one without NHL players - before beginning his pro career in America on a shootout goal against Canada in a moment captured on a Swedish postage stamp. He added to his legacy at Friday's opening ceremony by being a flag bearer.

Lidstrom hopes the Swedes can be the first country to win two Olympic golds since all of the world's best players were able to compete, but knows they're not the popular pick to pull off the feat.

"I think Canada and Russia are the top two teams to beat," Lidstrom said. "I would put us, the Finns and the Czechs in there and you could add the U.S. as a sixth team with a legit chance to win."

Sweden's shot will improve if Forsberg can stay healthy, a quest that has eluded him for almost a decade.

He has played just 17 of 48 games for Modo in his hometown of Ornskoldsvik, Sweden, and a mere three games for the same club last season. The former NHL MVP played just nine games in the regular season two years ago for the Colorado Avalanche in his final season in the league.

A rib injury slowed him earlier this season and a banged-up finger recently threatened to bump him off the roster in Vancouver. He's had foot and shoulder surgeries, his spleen has been removed, back and groin injuries have also ailed him.

"But right now, I feel good," he said.

Lidstrom, meanwhile, has missed no more than six games in a season since 1995.

"He's about as perfect of a hockey player as anyone could be," Swedish defenseman Douglas Murray said.

Lidstrom is a gold medal away from joining a pair of former Red Wings - Russians Igor Larionov and Slava Fetisov - and Forsberg as only the members of the Triple Gold Club with multiple Olympic championships.

He and Canadian Scott Niedermayer are the only players on the elite list with four Stanley Cups.

Lidstrom has won six Norris Trophies as the NHL's top defenseman, a total that trails just the total won by Bobby Orr and Doug Harvey in league history.

"I don't think people realize, still, how good he really is," Detroit and Swedish teammate Niklas Kronwall said. "There's no one like him, and there probably never will be another guy like him."

Sweden general manager Mats Naslund is hoping the current team will be like the one that won gold in Turin because he's bringing back 13 of those players on the 23-man team.

Red Wings forward Johan Franzen, who was added to the roster Sunday to replace injured NHL teammate Tomas Holmstrom, said he's glad Forsberg and Lidstrom are back to lead the way.

"It means a lot because they have a lot of experience and they've been doing a lot of winning," Franzen said.