By finishing first in the Norwegian Ligaen, the Stavanger Oilers have punched their return ticket to the Champions Hockey League. Now they will try to win their fifth national championship in six years. Standing in their way, however, are seven hungry clubs, including some that want to make up for a disappointing regular season with a strong playoff run.

by Tobias Eiken

With three games to go in the regular season, the Stavanger Oilers beat the second-placed Storhamar Dragons to clinch first place in the standings for the second time ever. With four of the last five Norwegian Championships, the new powerhouse in Norwegian hockey has found the league title a more difficult thing to conquer, but with the usual challengers Vålerenga Oslo and Lørenskog IK have had surprisingly poor seasons, leaving Storhamar to provide the only real challenge.

The final table is as follows:

 
The bottom two teams will go into a relegation playoff with the top two teams from Division 1. The top eight teams will play a three-round playoff with best-of-seven series in each round. The top team gets to choose their opponent from the two lowest ranked teams (7 or 8). The second team then gets to choose and opponent from the two lowest ranked teams that remain, and so on.

The Stavanger Oilers had a solid season from beginning to end. Traditionally a favourite for the league championship, they have usually run into bad spells that have cost them first place, but this year that hasn’t been the case. A very deep team with quality throughout the lineup and plenty of playoff experience, the Oilers will be most, if not all, pundits’ favourites. The fact that team captain and seven-time Norwegian champion Snorre Hallem could miss the whole playoffs due to a knee injury is a big loss, but the Oilers have the depth to deal with it. Stavanger selected eighth-ranked Stjernen Fredrikstad as their quarter-final opponent.

The Storhamar Dragons have been this season’s biggest surprise and success story, finishing second with a 12-point cushion. A traditional force in Norwegian hockey, the last five years have been tough for the club with economic problems and losing promising youngsters to other clubs, but with coach Alexander Smirnov in place, the fortunes of the club have improved considerably. With a good blend of veterans, youngsters and good imports, and led by Christian Larrivee – possibly the league’s MVP this year – Storhamar are back as a force to be reckoned with. Very solid through their top three lines, one of the team’s weaknesses could be a lack of depth. Storhamar could choose between local rivals Lillehammer and Lørenskog and chose their neighbours to the north, Lillehammer.

Sparta Sarpsborg won the championship in 2011, but at a heavy price. The club spent a lot more money going for the title than was coming in, and the club had to scale back their ambitions for a couple of seasons after to get their finances back on solid footing again. Some of the stars of the championship team are still there like Dion Knelsen and championship MVP Henrik Malmström. Around them, a new team has been built with promising youngsters and some solid imports. The lack of playoff experience could be Sparta’s biggest problem, but they could be the dark horse of this spring’s playoffs. Sparta stuttered in the last couple of regular-season games and needed a helping hand from arch-rivals Stjernen in the last game to clinch third. Sparta have chosen to meet Lørenskog in the quarter-finals.

Frisk Asker were the second-biggest positive surprise this season. Although they were expected to make the playoffs easily, they went into the final game with a chance of getting third place, but an overtime howler by their goalie cost them. The consistently great play of Swedish goaltender Nicklas Dahlberg and the scoring of imports Eric Castonguay and Denny Kearney, along with some promising youngsters, has made this Frisk’s best season since 2007–08, when Mats Zuccarello and the Abbott brothers (now with reigning CHL champions Luleå Hockey) led the team to a first-place finish and the playoff finals. They're a long shot for the finals, but can beat anyone on the day. That loss in their final game cost them third place, and that means a very tough series against Vålerenga Oslo.

Vålerenga have endured the club’s worst season in a long time. The 25-time Norwegian champions have, for the first time since 1988–89, not finished in the top three in the league. Going into the season with a small squad and both the CHL and the GET-league games coming thick and fast certainly took their toll, not to mention being the focus of the very successful reality series program Iskrigerene (Ice Warriors). They improved their squad during the season, though, and although it’s too early to give them a clean bill of health, this team can beat anyone at the top of their game. Centre Brian Ihnacak won the league scoring title, and defenceman Daniel Sørvik was the the league’s highest scoring blueliner, but the problem is that Vålerenga’s second-highest scoring forward had almost exactly half of Ihnacak’s 77-point total. Still, for all the team’s troubles, there is a lot of quality on the roster, and with their history, no one will want to face Vålerenga in the playoffs.

Lørenskog were expected to be one of Stavanger’s rivals for the regular-season title, but they’ve had a forgettable season and ended the regular season on a horrendous eight-game losing streak that cost them home-ice advantage in the quarter-finals. One of the league’s big spenders, the club has a solid core of Norwegian players, and at one point employed 11 imports (only seven can be in the game-day lineup), but are struggling to find consistency and chemistry under rookie coach Kenneth Larsen. Player for player, Lørenskog should be able to compete with anyone in the league, and maybe the playoffs can give the team some renewed energy. They have the talent to go all the way, but loads of question marks remain.

Lillehammer have had a trying season, and the surprise announcement that they would not renew coach Tor Nilsen’s contract mid-season hasn’t improved the mood around the club. Just a goal away from eliminating eventual champions Stavanger in last year’s semi-finals, this year has been a big step back for the team from the Olympic city. The team is good enough to cause an upset in the quarter-finals, though, but any more than that would be a big surprise.

Stjernen are on a slow rebuild after near-bankruptcy a couple of years ago and the goal of the season was to avoid the ignominy of last year when they, due to a last-minute loss to arch rivals Sparta, found themselves in the relegation playoffs. They have certainly improved this year and although they are no pushover, shouldn’t be a threat to the team that selects them for the quarter-finals, Stavanger.

Find the complete playoff schedule and up-to-date results here at the Norwegian Ice Hockey Association's website.