Wennerholm: If it holds up, this will be a walk in the desert
Rögle shocks Skellefteå and wins the first quarter-final 3-2.
I wonder what happened to Skelleftea’s shot.
Thirteen goals in the last nine matches.
These are the lower numbers.
If this goal drought persists, this playoff run will be a walk in the desert.
Skellefteå’s problems, however, really began at the end of the regular season.
In the last eight matches, the happiest SHL team to date has only found 11 goals to match.
That’s an average of 1.4 goals per game.
If we include the first quarter, the two goals are not enough to raise the very poor average.
In the first 44 games of the regular season, it was the same number of 3.6 goals forward per game – clearly the best in the series.
This was also the sixth loss in their last nine games, a declining form that contributed to losing the series with a win for Växjö.
Add that the team’s top scorer Oskar Müller hasn’t scored in ten games and Jock Lindström hasn’t scored in the last nine, and you realize the Västerbottoms have to sort it out.
Preferably already for the next game in Angelholm on Saturday.
Now I’m not entirely surprised Rögle won his first quarter-final.
Rögle brings a new pace to the game in his legs after three matches in four days against Leksand in the round of 16.
They played a decisive game until Tuesday.
Skellefteå has been resting for a little over a week and this is always causing some rust, which usually takes a few runs to go away.
But West Lows has used three of those periods now, without finding the sharpness in the finishes.
I myself nominated Skellefteå as a gold winner even before this season started, but now this is the first time I’ve had the nagging feeling that this edge might break.
In this match, however, Rögle’s efficiency was much better.
Dennis Everberg shocked the home crowd when he made it 1-0 just a minute later, when Skellefteå’s Andreas Wengerli pinned the ball to the attacking blue.
Everberg charged down the right wing and fired into the middle of the crack.
salary. Clinically.
Then Skyltea began a quest to break the deadlock.
But it took time and time before the first goal came.
There were only 18 seconds left in the middle of the period, when Philip Sandberg broke the deadlock with a very beautiful control in front of the goal with a numerical superiority.
Then Andreas Wingerli was so close seconds ago that the judges had to watch the video to make absolutely sure the puck wasn’t there.
men.
In the third period, the Skans were the most effective and decided the game.
Young defender Adam Engstrom, in Djurgården last year, rocked right into the box and volleyed home a 2-1 cross right behind Linus Soderström.
A wonderful show of nineteen years.
Then it was Adam Edstrom who decided 3-1 with just three and a half minutes left in the match.
Now came a quick cutback when Jonathan Johnson bagged an open box and managed to reduce the score to 3-2 after just half a minute.
Robert Olsson picked Linus Soderström from the penalty area immediately after that goal.
But even though the pucks swirled the great Christopher Revalke past Rogl, there was no equalizer.
No spread on SM Gold
Växjö was nowhere close to losing.
With Småland’s solid defence, it was enough to take a two-goal lead to win 2–0.
Joel Pearson covered 1-0, before Ludwig Nilsson finished the game with two clean goals.
No rattles there.
to something completely different:
There has been no direct spread of SM gold in the past decade.
In the past ten years, since Skellefteå achieved SM gold in 2013, three teams have shared seven titles out of nine.
After all, the X disappeared when the playoffs were canceled in the year of Covid 2020.
Växjö has three victories in 2015, 2018 and 2021, Skellefteå 2 (2013 and 2014) and Frölunda in 2016 and 2019.
The only ones to break this ranking are HV71 in 2017 and Varjestad, which won last time.
This time around, Växjö and Skellefteå are still big favorites and there’s a good chance SM gold will end up with one of the two teams – again.
Then three teams shared eight of the last ten gold medals.
I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but the winning culture seems to be getting stronger in some clubs.