HV71 Jonkoping head home with a two-goal lead after a 4-2 win over Sparta Prague. 

by Derek O'Brien

Martin Thornberg scored twice to reclaim his title of CHL Cramo Top Scorer with 11 points. More importantly, his goals provided the difference in his team's 4-2 win in Prague, giving HV71 a two-goal cushion heading home. 

Sparta wanted to get off to a fast start at home and they did, holding an edge in possession and in territory in the opening period. Fredrik Pettersson Wenzel had to make several early stops, though none of them really challenging. Then it was HV71 that struck first, thanks to a fortuitous bounce. Dylan Reese's long shot through a crowd was stopped by Filip Novotny, but the rebound went off the back of a Sparta defenceman and in the net for the only goal of the first period.

In the first minute of the second period, HV71 took firm control. Par Albrandt's long pass found a streaking Thornberg, catching Sparta's defence flat-footed, and the CHL's top scorer made no mistake on the breakaway, beating Novotny on the backhand deke. Miroslav Forman got Sparta on the board five minutes later on the power play, sliding in a rebound past a sprawling Pettersson Wenzel, but Thornberg restored his team's two-goal lead four minutes later on a big blast. 

“It was a good pass from Stenlund and I was totally open in the middle and I had a lot of time to aim the shot,” Thornberg said of his second goal.

“We knew he’s an amazing player,” Sparta assistant coach Zdenek Motak said of Thornberg. “He’s the leading scorer in the Swedish League. We didn’t have any special meeting about him because the games go one after another together with the Czech League, but of course we mentioned his name during practices.”

Sparta had another chance to cut into the defict on another player and got some chances, but couldn't convert. Then just after it ended, HV71 went on the attack and Kevin Stenlund's one-timer made it 4-1 after 40 minutes, putting the team from Jonkoping in firm control.

Sparta knew they had four periods to erase a three-goal deficit, and went out with the aim of cutting into it in their final home period. They came out attacking strong in the third period and Lukas Pech got one back on a spectacular individual effort, pouncing on a loose puck in the neutral zone and skating in on Pettersson Wenzel, beating him with an excellent forehand deke.

Trying to get at least one more goal, coach Josef Jandac rolled the dice and pulled Novotny with three minutes to play, but that didn't affect the score, so the difference remains two as the teams head north.

“That’s their decision to do that,” Linkoping assistant coach Nicklas Rahm said about Sparta's late-game gamble. “We had a couple of good scoring chances to score in the open net, but we didn’t. They had couple of good scoring chances to put there their third goal. But in the end there wasn’t any goal in any net. I don’t know if I’d ever do something similar. I can’t say in this situation, but that’s their decision. If they had scored, they would have succeeded. If we had scored, they would have looked little bit more stupid.”

“Well if it’s two- or three-goal difference, it doesn’t really matter,” Motak reasoned. “It was risky, but we wanted to go to Sweden only one goal down. You always hope to make good moves and we thought that this could help. Of course, it could happen that the opponent scores another goal, but you have to assess the risk. Unfortunately, we didn’t score a goal.”