Shutouts by Zurich's Lukas Flueler and Vaxjo's Joacim Eriksson means that the winner of their Quarter-Final will be decided next week in Vaxjo. Read more in Gamecentre.

by Derek O'Brien

It was an evenly played game between the ZSC Lions and Vaxjo Lakers, and the two stars were the two men at either end – Lukas Flueler for the Lions with 28 saves and and Joacim Eriksson for the Lakers with 26. Both posted shutouts, which means that their teams will settle the winner of this Quarter-Final next Tuesday in Vaxjo. 

“Overall I think it was an unemotional game, petty low-paced,” shrugged Zurich head coach Hans Wallson. “It was two teams playing something of a chess match – just staying in their positions and waiting for the other to make a mistake. There weren't many mistakes and the penalty killing was good for both teams.”

The Lions had a slight edge in the first period, thanks to a couple of power plays, but the best scoring chance went to Vaxjo shorthanded, when Robert Rosen forced a turnover and Flueler had to be sharp to turn away his drive. The second period was played more defensively but the Lakers pressed late – in a flurry of action Oliver Bohn fired three shots in quick succession at Flueler but the Lions keeper kept them all out.

“I think we played a good game,” said Lakers' assistant coach Fredrik Hellgren, who was the main bench boss tonight because head coach Sam Hallam came up ill. “We weren't really there for the first eight minutes, then we killed a couple of penalties. That woke us up and then we pressed better the rest of the game. (We had) good penalty killing, but it's too bad we didn't get more done on our power plays.”

For much of the third period, it seemed that both teams were going to be content with the tie and take their chances next week. However, with about two minutes to play came the most exciting exchange of the game – first Fabrice Herzog hit the post for Zurich, then Vaxjo were quick on the counter-attack and Flueler had to make a big glove save off Liam Reddox. That was all, however, as the game soon ended without a goal either way.

“We need more shots, more pucks to the net, and we need to increase our speed and put more pressure on them,” Wallson said, looking ahead to next week. 

“It's halftime now,” Hellgren said about the two-game, total-goal series. “Let's study this game now and we'll see what adjustments have to be made for the next one.”