Lulea Hockey continue to successfully defend their title by dominating Tappara Tampere on home ice, and Davos become the first non-Swedish or -Finnish team to reach the CHL quarter-finals. The Espoo Blues and Frolunda Gothenburg round out the CHL's elite eight.
Frolunda Gothenburg 6–0 HC Litvinov
GAME HIGHLIGHTS | FROLUNDA WIN ON AGGREGATE 7–2
Litvinov carried a slim 1-goal aggregate lead into this game and maintained it for 27 minutes, but they could only hold off the dangerous Frolunda offence for so long. The Indians scored 1 goal in the first 87 minutes of this series, but 6 in the last 33 with 3 goals coming on the power play. Spencer Abbott got the ball rolling a man up and added a second later, Sebastian Stalberg scored on a penalty shot, and Lars Johansson stopped all 14 shots he faced for the shutout to put last year's finalists through to the next round.
HV71 Jonkoping 1–1 Espoo Blues
GAME HIGHLIGHTS | BLUES WIN ON AGGREGATE 4–2
The Espoo Blues earned a tie on the road and, thanks to a 2-goal win on home ice last week, that was enough to see them through to the quarter-finals in their first CHL appearance. The two teams traded power-play goals midway through the game by Erik Christensen and Jussi Makkonen just 1:46 apart. Otherwise, HV71 had the edge in play but Christian Engstrand was brilliant, stopping 31 of 32 shots.
“Both games of the series were tough and I am happy about the way we controlled the game today. We are staying in Finland for the next round as we are playing Karpat Oulu. It will be a typical league game for us. We know the opponent quite well,” Blues coach Jyrki Aho said of the team they just faced and their opponent in the quarter-finals.
HC Davos 4–3 Bili Tygri Liberec
GAME HIGHLIGHTS | DAVOS WIN ON AGGREGATE 9–6
They were in good shape coming home with a 2-goal lead, and they doubled that in the first period of this game by taking a 3–1 lead. Liberec made things interesting by scoring twice early in the second to tie the game, but they couldn't get any closer. With a late power play, they pulled their goalie and Dino Wieser put the series away with a short-handed empty-netter, his second goal of the game. Samuel Walser had a goal and an assist for Davos, while Petr Jelinek scored twice for Liberec.
Lulea Hockey 5–0 Tappara Tampere
GAME HIGHLIGHTS | LULEA WIN ON AGGREGATE 6–2
Coach Joakim Faggervall was confident his team would play well on home ice, and they sure did. Down by 1 on aggregate to Tappara, Lulea got a couple of goals in the first period to take the lead, but that's the way the score staye for a long time – Tappara still a goal from tying it. In the last 10 minutes, however, Lulea broke it open with three goals in a 5:36 span to stamp their ticket to the quarter-finals. Jacob Micflikier scored 2 goals, Toni Rajala had 3 assists and Daniel Larsson needed to make only 13 saves for the shutout.
“During the first period we really played our game. Our defensive game was really impressive. In the second period Tappara took over a bit and we lost some intensity, we get really passive and let them control the game a bit too much. In the third period we’re back up there once again playing our game,” said a pleased Lulea coach Joakim Fagervall. “I think we had a much better game here at home. We created more offensively and we were really good in our own end. Lulea have a clear goal – that’s to win the CHL – hence, advancing is a big deal for us.”
“Lulea were the better team tonight, they battled harder, skated harder and won the game fair and square. We weren't ready today. We need to prepare better if we want to beat a team as good as Lulea,” was all Tappara coach Jussi Tapola could say.