CurlingZone: Canada's Team Dunstone topples Sweden at 2026 LGT World Men's Curling Championship

OGDEN, Utah -- Canada's Team Matt Dunstone will take an abundance of satisfaction from their 90 minutes or so of work Tuesday night at the 2026 LGT World Men's Curling Championship.

Dunstone's Winnipeg team capped another two-win day at the Weber County Ice Sheet and needed just six ends to dispatch Sweden's Team Niklas Edin and send an emphatic message that Team Canada is gearing up for a run to the playoffs.

With the win, Dunstone, vice-skip Colton Lott, second E.J. Harnden, lead Ryan Harnden, alternate Geoff Walker, team coach Caleb Flaxey and national coach Jeff Stoughton improved to 6-2 in round-robin play and stretched their current win streak to four after back-to-back losses on the weekend.

Canada is tied for third place in the 13-team round-robin standings, tied with Scotland's Team Ross Whyte, and behind Switzerland's Team Marco Hoesli (7-1) and Sweden (7-2).

"I think with the couple losses we had earlier in the week, maybe some people thought we could have been a bit of a vulnerable group," said Dunstone, whose team defeated China 8-4 earlier on Tuesday. "I think what we did today kind of shuts that all down. Even though we had a couple tough losses, there was a lot of confidence within the group. We know the type of team we are and we're starting to really show that on a consistent basis and really trending the way we want to."

The much-anticipated Tuesday night clash couldn't have started any better for Team Canada and any worse for the Swedes, who had last-rock advantage in the first.

Sweden had long-time lead Christoffer Sundgren on the bench, with alternate Simon Olofsson filling in, and regular second Rasmus Wranaa serving as vice-skip, and third Oskar Eriksson taking on more sweeping duties. So the unfamiliar combination of Olofsson and Eriksson sweeping Edin's stones may have been a factor when their brooms made contact on Edin's first shot of the game, and resulted in Olofsson's broom touching the running stone and having it removed from play.

Dunstone's last shot removed Sweden's lone stone in the rings and left Canada sitting five, and then Edin was light on his draw, resulting in a stunning steal of four for Team Dunstone.

"We put eight straight together, really precise shots in the first end and made them look at five," said Dunstone. "You couldn't ask for a better start. I'm a firm believer (that) you create your own breaks, and we did that today."

Canada didn't let up. Dunstone made a tough double takeout in the second to snuff out a Swedish deuce, and Edin was forced to draw for a single, and an end later, Dunstone made a tap to score a pair and make it 6-1.

Edin was again forced to one in the fourth, and then Team Dunstone delivered essentially the coup de grace as Dunstone made a precise takeout to push a Swedish stone through a tight port and score four more.

Edin hit for a single in the sixth, and immediately offered handshakes.

"We understand how big this game was and it had a different feel out there," said Dunstone. "It felt like a bit of a playoff game tonight, it had that energy from our group. I thought right from the get-go we won that energy battle, had the dominant first end and got a break and just took it from there."

"The boys continued to build and they brought it (tonight)," added Flaxey. "We've seen an improvement over the last few days. We had a great two-game day (Monday) and we're just kind of going through the same pattern again today. We had a great morning session and we followed up with a great one tonight. So, very impressed."

Team Canada completes its run of three straight morning-night split-draw days on Wednesday, with games at 11 a.m. (all times Eastern) against Switzerland, and 9 p.m. against Czechia's Team Lukas Klima (2-6).

Teams have been informed that the stones will be textured late Tuesday night, and the Wednesday morning battle with Switzerland could have massive implications in determining the top two round-robin finishers, who will get byes to the semifinals.

"We'll see what we get," said Dunstone. "Obviously conditions are going to look a little bit different, so whoever catches on the quickest is probably going to win that game. It's nice getting off the ice a little bit earlier tonight to rest up and come out flying tomorrow. Obviously it's another big game for us and we would just love to keep the momentum going."

In other Tuesday night games, Scotland turned back Germany's Team Mark Muskatewitz (4-5) 10-4; Italy's Team Stefano Spiller (6-3) defeated Czechia 6-4; and South Korea's Team Changmin Kim (3-6) was a 9-7 winner over Norway's Team Andreas Haarstad (0-8).

Switzerland, Team John Shuster (5-3) of the United States, China's Team Xiaoming Xu (3-5), Japan's Team Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi (3-5) and Poland's Team Konrad Stych (2-6) all had byes on Tuesday night.

Round-robin play runs through to Thursday, with the top six teams making the playoffs; no tiebreakers will be played, so ties for playoff spots will be broken based on head-to-head results, and if that doesn't resolve the tie, then the pre-game Last-Shot Draw distances.

The top two teams from round-robin play will be seeded directly into the semifinals on Friday at 5 p.m., while third will play sixth and fourth will play fifth in the qualifying-round games at 11 a.m. on Friday.

The winners of the qualifying-round games will advance to the semifinals. The semifinal winners will play for gold on Saturday at 4 p.m., with the semifinal losers battling for bronze on Saturday at 11 a.m.

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