Thursday’s action in the Swedish Hockey League was another reminder that you should always expect the unexpected in this great sport.
The schedule had produced a classic ‘top versus bottom’ fixture with league leaders Färjestad, fresh off an impressive CHL victory against Ilves Tampere, hosting an Oskarshamn side that had lost seven games in a row after claiming an Opening Day Overtime victory.
Färjestad’s Head Coach, Tomas Mitell, has had to manage his resources carefully this week with his team playing three games in six days.
Joel Nyström and Marcus Nilsson were left out yesterday having played against both Örebro on Saturday and Ilves on Tuesday. Victor Ejdsell and Magnus Nygren came back into the side after not featuring on Tuesday against Ilves, whilst Mattias Göransson and Joel Kellman sat out the Örebro game two be fresh to play in the next two.
Meanwhile Carl Lindbom was back between the pipes against Oskarshamn after Max Lagacé had taken the start in the CHL.
Given the changes and the workload, it was not surprising that it took Färjestad a while to get up to speed, but they finally opened the scoring 14:44 into the Second Period when Michael Lindqvist got his third goal of the SHL season.
Most would have expected Färjestad to push on from there and to take another victory; however, the game suddenly changed when Nick Olesen sent a slapshot past Lindbom with 2 seconds left in the period to level the score at 1-1.
The game went back-and-forth during the Third Period and Färjestad had a big chance to win it in the final five minutes when Joel Kellman was unable to sweep the puck past Oskarshamn’s goalie Marek Langhamer with a large part of the net gaping.
That missed chance came back to haunt the home team as with just two minutes to go, Lukas Jasek, facing his own goal, spun at the blue line and threw the puck onto the net. Logan Hutsko, from the Florida Panthers system, was there to deflect it past Lindbom and the goal stood despite complaints that the puck had been played with a high stick.
Oskarshamn held on from there for an unlikely 2-1 victory.
Elsewhere in the SHL
Unfortunately for Oskarshamn, they are still five points behind the 13th-placed team as HV71 got a 4-0 win of their own against Rögle.
Meanwhile Örebro cut the gap to Färjestadat the top of the SHL to three points after they secured a dramatic Overtime win against Timrå.
It looked like Örebro would fail to capitalise on Färjestadat’s slip when they trailed 2-1 going into the final minute of regulation time. Then up stepped Mathias Bromé who equalised with just 33 seconds left on the clock, bagging his fifth goal of the season. Axel Sundberg then grabbed his first goal of the season to win it 3-2 in OT for Örebro.
Saturday’s Fixtures
Färjestad vs Rögle
MoDo vs Örebro
Skellefteå vs Linköping
Frölunda vs HV71
Växjö vs Luleå
Timrå vs Leksands
Oskarshamn vs Malmö