The highly-anticipated match-up between Ilves Tampere and Färjestad Karlstad lived up to all expectations. It was a very competitive game all the way with a dramatic finish.
Ilves looked like they were going to send their fans home happy heading into the final few minutes with a 3-2 lead. Their Swedish visitors had different ideas.
A goal-mouth melee ended with Lucas Forsell knocking the puck into the back of the net with two minutes of regulation time to go. The tension rose as a challenge was made for potential goalie interference, but after a short wait the officials came back onto the ice and signalled that the goal would stand.
The game went to Overtime where both teams had their chances to win it before Färjestad’s captain, Linus Johansson, shot the puck past Jakub Málek with only 45 seconds left on the clock.
The 4-3 victory secured Färjestad’s path into the play-offs before their final regular season game on home ice at Löfbergs Arena against Red Bull Munich next Tuesday (17th).
As for Ilves, it was a disappointing end to what was another quality performance in the CHL. Their previous four victories had already been enough to make the play-offs so the defeat will be easy enough to shake off. Their final CHL regulation season game is in France next Wednesday (18th) against the Rouen Dragons.
Belfast with a Giant win!
Whilst Färjestad would have enjoyed their OT win greatly, as Genève-Servette no doubt did with their 3-2 OT victory over Dynamo Pardubice, neither could match the emotion at the SSE Arena in Belfast.
The schedulers had handed Belfast Giants a very tough start to their CHL campaign with games in Finland against Lukko Rauma and Tappara Tampere and when HC Innsruck narrowly edged them in a 3-2 contest on 7th September the 0-3 Giants knew they had a mammoth task ahead of them.
They were able to dust themselves down two days later with a 4-0 home win against Bolzano before spending the past month concentrating on UK competitions.
Yesterday’s game against Red Bull Salzburg gave Adam Keefe’s team the opportunity to show what they can do now that they are properly into their season. The result was a hard-fought battle between two good teams in which neither were able to break the deadlock after 60 minutes.
It looked like the goaltenders would both come out on top at the end of the five minutes of Overtime too until a turnover in the neutral zone gave Belfast one last chance.
Daniel Tedesco drove towards Salzburg’s net, played a perfect one-two with Quinn Preston and then shifted the puck beautifully to his back-hand to finally beat AtteTolvanen and win the game with four seconds to go.
The 5,000+ fans nearly took the roof off the SSE Arena as Tedesco was mobbed by his teammates on a night that will live long in the memory of the Teal Army.
Can the Giants complete the comeback and end their regular season on a 3-3 record? Dynamo Pardubice will provide a stern test on 18th October, but Belfast might just pull it off with a raucous home crowd behind them.
Östlund at the double
Finally, Växjö Lakers made it five wins from five games with a 5-2 away victory against ERC Ingolstadt.
The star of the show was 19-year old Noah Östlund. He opened the scoring 4.32 into the First Period before collecting another goal and an assist on a three-point night.
Östlund was selected 18th overall by the Buffalo Sabres in the 2022 NHL draft and, as is typical among European prospects, initially he has carried on his development in his home continent.
Last season he made 37 appearances in the HockeyAllsvenskan, the second-tier of Swedish league play, collecting 26 points along the way before making seven appearances for Sweden in the World Junior Championship (WJC), a tournament in which newly-minted NHL player Connor Bedard led Canada to the gold medal.
The Sabres have loaned Östlund to Växjö to make the step up to the SHL this season with the intention of him then making the move to North America for the 2024-25 season.
It’s always an important step for young players as SHL teams do not hand out playing time cheaply. Indeed, for some forward prospects this assignment is the first time for years that they have been in the position of getting meagre third/fourth line minutes and have to earn the trust of their Head Coach to get more time on the ice.
How a prospect handles this situation, and what they learn from the experience, can be a crucial factor in their development.
Östlund has been averaging around 17 minutes of playing time per game so far in the SHL and he certainly made the most of his 16:01 TOI against Ingolstadt yesterday.