In fact, Yes it does. Flattening the curve means that less people die because hospitals are unable to deal with a sudden flood of cases in a narrow period of time.
Moreover, as doctors have more time to focus into figthing against covid damage instead to give priority to just keep as many people alive as possible, sequels are also less serious
Less people died means that area under the curve represents a lower value now. The problem is that the common people are not always familiar with statistics. Both curves have a total area of 100 of course but this is a percent from a value. Not the value on itself. 50% of 10 is not the same as 50% of 3000.
> most of the deaths would have happened anyway
But not all of those, and this is a big difference
And remember Sweden has first class healthcare. A similar strategy in the US would have been absurdly expensive and resulted in mass bankruptcy in addition to mass deaths.
So yes, most of the deaths would have happened anyway, but over a longer period of time. The improvement in treatments has not been substantial. Most of the deaths in Sweden were among high-risk groups, such as elderly people in care homes, who probably could not be saved if they got the virus today rather than several months ago.
Sweden intentionally set themselves up with a policy they can sustain for a long haul. They were betting that the pandemic will last a long time, certainly longer than a lockdown can be sustained.