Frölunda Indians continue to show why they are the Champions Hockey’s League’s most successful team, taking themselves to a fifth final in the competition’s six year old history.
They will face Czech opponents in the final for the first time since 2015/6, in the shape of Mountfield BK. The home team put pay to the possibility of another all Swedish final in the CHL by dumping out Djurgården IF by an impressive 6-1 on aggregate.
Frölunda again took the difficult route to the final, going into tonight’s deciding match in Luleå with a 2-3 deficit having been outplayed by the SHL league leaders in Gothenburg last week.
And when Luleå HF scored first to stretch their lead to two goals through the ever present Finn, Juhani Tyrväinen at 13:41 it seemed a repeat on the 2014/5 CHL final might be on the cards with the Norrbotten team coming out on top.
But in the second period the visiting Indians do what they do best - come from behind and take an unlikely victory.
One of the key architects of that was 37 year old captain, Joel Lundqvist. Whilst he may have been their most penalized player, sitting out for six minutes in total, he was a key part of their crucial game changing second period goal when he deftly flicked the puck to New York Islanders drafted Rhett Rakhshani to net on the powerplay at 30:59. He was also the goalscorer of the equalizing goal at 43:19 with a beautiful deflection in front of Luleå netminder, Joel Lassinantti.
Luleå are great on defense and for almost two hours managed to put a lid on Frölunda’s diminutive playmaker, Ryan Lasch so that he was barely noticeable. But the undrafted American was able to do what all great players do - make a difference in one split second when it counts. And at 50:35 he took the puck just at the top of the left hand circle, shifted to the left to beat his man and shot the puck past the Luleå minder up into the net.
Mountfield will be able to look at the match videos and see how to neutralize Frölunda, but the question still remains if they can do it for long enough to prevent the Swedish team taking their fourth CHL trophy at five attempts when the two teams meet in the Czech Republic on 4 February.
@ABritOnThinIce1
