Niklas Wikegård believes that the final series between Växjö and Skellefteå didn’t really come to life.
The expert was lacking in physical game.
– We’ve become a very soft league, he says on the Sportstudion podcast.
On Tuesday, the Växjö Lakers became Swedish ice hockey champions for the fourth time in eight years after defeating Skellefteå 4-1 in the final series.
One of the people who followed the final closely was Cymore expert Niklas Wikegaard.
On the Sportstudion podcast, he expressed some concern about what he’d seen in recent weeks.
– No one can come and say that the last series between Skellefteå and Växjö was a cracking event. Quite a few highs have been drawn around it. It’s a very nice, very polished approach and we’ve become a very weak league. He says that’s my reasoning on the whole thing.
“almost not a treat”
Wikegård, who has been critical of the physical game in the SHL for several years, believes that the star defenders of the two endgame teams have received too little flirtation from their opponents.
Watch the final this year. Jonathan Bodas has had almost no problem the entire Finals series. I know these guys are hard to deal with, but no one ever tries. There, I think Swedish hockey and the final will be a bit flat. Then people can think what the hell they want.
– I want to go from the lull of the regular season to something completely different in the playoffs, as it was in past years. It wasn’t better before, but it was different. Now it’s not much harder in the playoffs, I miss that, he says on the Sportstudion podcast.
