Skellefteå drew 1-1 in matches after a narrow 1-0 away win against Rögle.
Victory manager?
Jonathan Bodas from PAC.
I find it hard to see the best major player in this playoff if Skelleftea goes all the way.
Pudas took home the Salming Trophy as the SHL’s best defenseman this season and there couldn’t have been a more fitting one.
After all, he grew up playing hockey in Börjes Kiruna, before moving to Skellefteå when he was 17 years old.
And while Jonathan Bodas will never make it to Salming Heights, they do have a lot in common.
Determination, the will to win and the ability to rule the entire ice.
But perhaps above all the self-image, of not being completely satisfied with yourself, of always thinking that one could have done someone better.
It doesn’t matter how good it was
Skellefteå could take it far in this playoff.
Now it was Jonathan Bodas who stepped forward when the second quarter-final game was 0-0 for good and as Skelleftea didn’t get a free kick from their biggest puck possession.
But in the middle of the last half came the 1-0 recovery for the away team.
In a situation where everyone was expecting a shot from Jonathan Bodas from the blue zone, he slotted a tricky pass to Jonathan Johnson at Christopher Revalke’s far post.
Rögle should get all the credit
And Johnson just had to put the puck in the empty basket.
This composure and presence of mind may have saved Skellefteå in this quarter-final match.
For Rögle, there was no shortage of chances, especially in the first period, and Linus Söderström had to explain why he was named the best goalkeeper of the series.
Victory was almost a necessity.
Being up 2-0 in games is a playoff series nightmare.
It actually looks less bad than it actually is.
But it’s a disadvantage as you have to win four out of the maximum five remaining matches.
Now Skellefteå has regained the ground advantage and Albin Sundsvik made up for it by making it 2-0 when Rögle had to open up and bet forward.
There was suspected offside before this goal, but that’s history now.
I hardly think she clinched this match.
But Rögle should take all the credit for a very solid game.
After the disappointment and ninth place in the regular season, they emerged as a fresh team into the playoffs.
And the setting at Katina Arena was great on Saturday.
A greenish-white, drenching sea gave goosebumps even before the match.
But can they climb to Skellefteå and win again?
I suspect.
The feeling is that this was Scania’s chance to take home the quarter-finals.
Believes in 4-0 to Växjö
Lulea counted right after losing to the series winners in the first quarterfinal, when they managed only nine shots in the entire game.
What she did is a club record for not reaching double figures in three spells.
I expected Växjö to clean up Luleå’s northern bottoms, too.
But then Jonas Rusk stepped forward again.
The Finn was one of those who gave the goal drought a face in Luleå during the regular season, and he played the main role in the playoffs.
It was he who decided to score 3-2 in extra time, when Lulea knocked out Oskarshamn in the Round of 16.
Now up 1-0 into an empty net a minute before halftime.
The only match between these two defensive giants.
It sets the stage for an interesting continuation in a series of matches that I thought would end 4-0 against Småland.
He is the only hope for Lolias and Rugel
But historically, the top two teams in the regular season have also been superior in the playoffs.
Serie A has been champion half of the times since the playoffs began.
If you combine them with the runner-up in the regular season, they get 70 percent of your gold SM.
Now there was a trend break last year, so Färjestad’s sixth series has continued all the way.
It only happened once before.
I think, like most people, it’s fun with clippings and SM’s first gold from 1995 in HV71 is historic, when they were 8th in the regular season and went all the way.
This is the only time a lower-ranked team has won SC gold, and seventh place remains the only place that has never finished as champion.
The HV71’s ride was unbeatable until the 2013/14 season, when the SHL decided to introduce what they called Play In.
to give the 9th and 10th of the series a chance to storm into the quarterfinal game.
Now it happened once again that the two teams – Rögle and Luleå – have moved on.
And not only that.
They put at least some pressure on the first and second regular season.
Now the story is dark regarding the 16 winners round.
Only once – in sixteen attempts – has a team escaped the quarter-finals.
It was Malmö, eighth in the regular season, who knocked out series winners Växjö in 2017.
Perhaps this is the only hope for Luleå and Rögle.
After all.