The less joyful side to the Swedish Hockey League play-offs gets underway on Friday evening as HV71 and Oskarshamn play Game One of their best-of-seven series to determine which of the bottom two clubs will plummet down into the HockeyAlllsvenskan.
HV71 found themselves in this position three years ago and it didn’t end well for them. In 2020-21 they were beaten 4-1 by Brynäs to be relegated to the HockeyAlllsvenskan four seasons after they had won the SHL Championship. Their stay in the HAS lasted only one season, but hopes that promotion would get them back on track in the top tier have proved to be forlorn.
They finished 11th in the SHL last season and slipped to 13th this time around, putting themselves in the precarious position of needing to get the better of Oskarshamn in the best-of-seven game series to avoid a second relegation to the HAS in four years.
As for Oskarshamn, this is the first time they have had to play in the Relegation series since being promoted to the SHL in 2019, although that is partly because the 2020 play-offs were postponed when the team was sitting bottom of the league.
After successive trips to the post-season in the last two years, this season has been a real struggle, encapsulated by the 16-game losing streak they endured at the end of the campaign.
Oskarshamn’s fall has not been completely unexpected given that they lost two of their best players over the off-season. The 2022-23 SHL Points Leader Antti Suomela moved on to Lausanne in the Swiss National League, whilst Jiří Smejkal was signed by the Ottawa Senators and he has played 12 games for them in the NHL so far alongside 40 games for the Belleville Senators in the AHL.
They’ve also had to deal with injuries to a number of key players, most notably their star forward Patrik Karlkvist whose season is over due to an arm injury. The position he is in shows how high the stakes are in the Relegation Play-off. Karlkvist is under contract with Oskarshamn until 2028; however his contract allows him to leave if the team gets relegated and it is rumoured that he has a tentative agreement in place with Örebro that will be finalised in the event of that happening.
So much rests on the outcome of the Relegation Play-off, not least as Brynäs and Djurgårdens have proved that climbing back up out of the HAS is no sure thing even for teams with good resources available to them.
Of course, that’s what makes the Relegation Play-Off such a fiercely contested and emotional series. It’s nerve-wracking for the teams involved and great drama for everyone else.