Frolunda Gothenburg qualified for the third straight Champions Hockey League final with a routine win in Switzerland over Fribourg-Gotteron. Read more in Gamecentre.

by Luke Fisher, with contribution from Alain Hauert

Fribourg-Gotteron already had a mountain to climb after going down 5-1 in Gothenburg last week, and made life difficult for thesemvles in tonight's match by taking a couple of early minor penalties. Having killed them off though, the Dragons had a power play opportunity of their own but were unable to get past Johan Gustafsson in the Frolunda net. Midway through the period, the mountain became somewhat higher as Sean Bergenheim put Frolunda ahead on the night at 12:39 – 6-1 on aggregate.

“At the beginning of both games, Fribourg came out hard and tried their best, but the big strength of our team is that we have four strong lines and if we can keep those four lines rolling, that's what makes us a strong team,” said Bergenheim, who scored Frolunda's first goal and assisted on the third. “And in the end this was the difference between us and Fribourg, who could not keep up this rhythm for the whole game.”

“I think we lost this competition in the first leg when we played in Gothenburg," Fribourg defenceman Alexandre Picard honestly assessed. “Still, we had a good start in this game, coming out strong and unfortunately we hit the goalpost twice in the initial period and then we conceded the first goal. That made the difference definitely too big.”

Things got worse for the hosts just 48 seconds into the middle period – Henrik Tommernes scoring on the power play to put Frolunda two ahead on the night. Having killed off a penalty Fribourg created some decent half chances as the period went on, but in general lacked a final, cutting-edge pass to find a way through Frolunda's stingy defence. With the clock ticking down on the period, the game was put practically out of sight as Robin Figren backhanded a loose puck past Benjamin Conz to make it 3-0 with 38:44 played.

Again Frolunda came out for a period and struck early – Carl Grundstrom set free on the breakaway by Jacob Larsson, and making no mistake with the top-shelf finish at 41:24. That was the last scoring of the game, and while Fribourg tried to at least get themselves on the board, Gustafsson held on for the 22-save shut out.

Frolunda qualify for their third straight CHL Final with an aggregate 9-1 victory.

"The game was pretty well balanced. We started pretty well, but they were more efficient than us, and we missed scoring the first goal to get us going," said Fribourg coach Larry Huras after the game. "I'm vey pelased that we were able to get this far in the Champions League."

"I think the start of the game they had some dangerous scoring opportunities, they hit the post a few times so we were a bit lucky in this game – but overall I think we were the better team," added Frolunda head coach Roger Ronnberg. "We are always working hard, have four lines working for each other and stepping up." 

Ronnberg continued: "It will be really special to play the Final at home. We've played it the last two years away, so we appricite that. I've seen Sparta play – they're a really good team. We'll have to play our best game in the Final to win the trophy."