With nine points in three games, Linkoping HC now know they will finish first place in Group K after a 4-3 win over JYP Jyvalsyla. Read more in Gamecentre.
After winning in Jonkoping on Sunday, Linkoping HC essentinally controlled their own destiny in Group K. By winning 4-3 against JYP on home ice, they have now secured top spot in the group.
A fast start from Linkoping, and in particular from Broc Little, staked the home team to a 2-0 lead after 15 minutes. First he pounced on a loose puck in the neutral zone and scored on a breakaway in the eighth minute, then on the power play he parked himself at the side of the net and one-timed Niclas Bergfors's pass in.
"Obviously, Broc Little was really good today," said Linkoping coach Dan Tanges. "Not only scoring two goals, but creating a whole lot of chances besides that. Otherwise, Niclas Bergfors and Emil Sylvegard were good today as well, and even if it's difficult to point any specific player out right now I would say that these three were the ones who stood out a bit today."
To their credit, however, JYP fought back. Just two minutes after the 2-0 goal, Mikko Kalteva drove to the net and directed Henri Kanninen's pass past Marcus Hogberg. Then early in the second period they tied it when Antti Suomela capitalized on a turnover in the Linkoping zone and fired it home.
The second period ended 2-2, but Linkoping regained the lead early in the third, Emil Sylvegard scored a beautiful goal on a spin-o-rama play, scoring on his backhand. They then defended their lead well the rest of the way, with Niklas Persson scoring what turned out to be an important insurance goal into the open JYP net with 46 seconds to play. That's because, right after the faceoff, Robert Rooba made a great individual play and scored to once again close the gap to one. That's as close as they would come, however.
"You have to go all in, even in the last minute, you fight to the end," Rooba said when questioned about his goal afterwards. "It was a tight game with good speed and good battling. Two similar teams that have good speed and move the puck really well. I think that both teams had chances to win this game, but today wasn't our day."
"I think that we started the game really well and played structured with a lot of good details,” Tanges summarized. “In the second period they fore-checked extremely hard and we couldn't handle it at all, and we started to give away the puck and lose structure, but I think we came back huge in the third and managed to win the game. I think we all can see that it's an early stage of the season where it's difficult to play solid for 60 minutes and we have a lot to work with even though we makes a lot of things that are really good. And after all, we have three straight wins in the CHL, so we're satisfied."