Weekly Recap: The Finals
Frölunda V Skellefteå
Despite the majority of this post seasons series resulting in sweeps, the series between Frölunda and Skellefteå went the distance and was decided in game seven on Thursday evening. It was the second game seven of the post season and Frölunda has been part of both.
Unfortunately for Frölunda, however, they were unable to come away with the victory after mounting a comeback in the series. After going down 3-1 in the series they battled their way back to tie up the series. However, in game 7, Skellefteå was the dominant team and came away with a decisive 4-1 victory to punch their ticket to the finals.
This will be Skellefteås second final in a row and they will be hoping to break their streak of losing their last four finals appearances.
OLA WESTERBERG / BILDBYRÅN
Game 1
It was a Saturday afternoon affair to kick off the final between Skellefteå and Rögle. Being the higher seed Skellefteå will have home ice advantage in the series. However, Rögle has been undaunted by their previous opponents home ice advantage, so they will be hoping to continue their trend of winning on the road in the post season.
Game one was an extremely tight contest with both teams struggling to find the back of the net. Both Linus Söderström and Christoffer Rifalk were fantastic between the pipes and it looked like this game would be a scoreless affair in regulation time. Neither team generated many chances in the third period, Rögle put four shots on target and Skellefteå put six on net. Luckily for Skellefteå one of those shots finally found the back of the net. At the 15:44 mark of the third frame Linus Lindström was able to collect the puck out front after a blue line shot and bury it into the back of the net. This would be the only goal of the game and Skellefteå would come away with series lead in game 1.
This loss marks the first loss for Rögle since March 5th as they have strung together 13 straight wins, 10 of which have been in the post season. Skellefteå have also now won 6 of their 7 home games in the playoffs, so Rögle will have their work cut out for them if they're hoping to win on the road.
Ola Westerberg/BILDBYRÅN
