HV71 moved to the verge of qualification with a comfortable win in Sheffield. Read more in Gamecentre.
Sheffield Steelers hosted HV71 for their first home game in the Champions Hockey League this season.
After a good opening spell, HV71 opened the scoring through Chris Abbott on the powerplay at 12:28. This was followed up another goal with the extra skater just over a minute later, Martin Tornberg netting at 13:42. To their credit, Sheffield didn't give up despite going down by a pair early on, and levelled when Rob Dowd's snapshot in the slot flew into the back of Pettersson-Wentzel's net at 14:55, and the scores stayed at 2-1 to the visitors going into the first intermission.
The middle period was much more finely balanced, despite HV71's superior shot count advantage. The Steelers found their best chances coming while playing a man down with odd-man rushes, however they couldn't find a way past Pettersson-Wentzel. The best chance of the period was though for the visitors – a penalty shot awarded to Mattias Tedenby, but he missed the net with a little under five minutes to play in the middle session.
Having done well to go into the final period just a goal down, Sheffield somewhat unravelled due to ill discipline in the last 20 minutes. Teemu Laine made use of the man advantage at 40:26 to make it 3-1, then Chris Abbott followed up just under six minutes later to make it four – again on the powerplay. Tedenby made up for his earlier miss by scoring on a double-man advantage at 50:21 to make it 5-1 and all-but round off the win for the visitors. Sheffield did have the last word though, Rob Dowd on the power play firing home a rebound at 54:56 to make a score of 5-2 to HV71.
"We were right in the game until the third period, and then we did the same thing as we've done in the last two. It's frustrating. I can accept at this level that we are half a second behind these great teams and if we take penalties for battling then I can accept that. But we got frustrated again – we can't be handling penalties all night like that," said a frustrated Paul Thompson after the game. "It's a bitter pill, we were there in the game and it was hard work. I'll talk to the players, and let them know we've taken away an opportunity to progress. We have to wake up, and wake up quickly."
"It was a tough game with a lot of penalties, playing 5-on-5 I thought the Steelers defended very well and they made it tough for us to get pucks on the net," commented HV71 head coach Johan Lindbom. "I think they're a good team with a big heart, they work hard every shift and I think they'll have a good season."