Semifinals
The best-of-five matches will start this week and will see Second v Third and First v Fifth from the regular season:
MODO Hockey v Linköping HC
Luleå HF v HV71
1. MODO v Linköping
The first out on Tuesday 26 February will be a repeat of one of last year’s semifinals, but this time MODO will come in as favourites over last year’s finalists, Linköping.
The club from Örnsköldsvik have brought in two French international players from IF Björklöven to help them in the final push to gold. So look out for 27 year olds, Betty Jouanny and Lore Baudrit, to make it a French trio with Marion Allemoz already at the club.
Jouanny is 5’2” (158 cm) and has played in Sweden for six years, but Baudrit is 6’2” (190 cm) and is in her first season in Sweden after playing for Montreal Canadiennes last year. She scored an incredible 50 points in just 15 games in DamEttan (the division below the SDHL) this year and has already been on loan at MODO to cover injuries. The French forward could well be the difference between the two clubs in this semifinal.
Last year American Olympic gold medalist Sidney Morin came back from Pyeongchang success only to be on the losing team at MODO. Last autumn she moved to rivals Linköping HC and has become the league’s second highest scoring defender. There’s no doubt that she will want to be on the winning side this year and will play her part with important roles at both ends of the ice.
Her powerful shot from the blue line will be essential to create both goals and rebounds in front of net for last year’s runners up.
But she will also clock masses of ice time in her own defensive zone trying to tame her former teammates. She will almost certainly be detailed to cover MODO’s top scorers, who apart from Baudrit are two prolific Canadian hotshots, Michela Cava and Kaitlyn Tougas.
2. Luleå v HV71
The other match will see the only team left in the competition that did not beat Luleå/ MSSK in the regular season, HV71, take on the favourites. But the Jönköping club can pull on their historic shock win in 2016/7 when they beat the then reigning champions.
HV71 have seven players from that season’s roster such as experienced Swedish international Fanny Rask and in form, Maja Jakobsson in their squad for this semifinal. That includes captain and veteran Finn, Riikka Sallinen, who will return after her four match suspension for Checking to the Head in the quarterfinal.
It is possible that only Finns will be on the scoresheet in this series as Olympic Bronze medal teammates take on each other in a Sallinen-Hakala-Lindstedt (HV71) verses Karvinen-Hiirikoski-Tulus-Nieminen-Savolainen (Luleå) duel.
The underdogs from Småland will be looking to the best import keeper in the league, Spaniard Alba Gonzalo, to keep the Finns at bay, whilst Luleå have the league’s top netminder, Swede Sara Grahn between the pipes.
This series begins in Luleå in Wednesday 27 February.
@ABritOnThinIce1
