Sparta Prague came up with an amazing performance in the return game in Jonkoping, beating HV71 5-0 to erase a two-goal aggregate deficit and advance to the Quarter-Finals. Read more in Gamecentre.

by Derek O'Brien, with contribution from Anders Borjesson

Trailing by two goals on aggregate, Sparta Prague went into Jonkoping and beat HV71 5-0 to win in total by three and advance to the Quarter-Finals. Lukas Pech and Andrej Kudrna led the offence with 3 points each and Filip Novotny made 18 saves for the shutout.

Most of Novotny's saves came in the first period, as HV71 seemed to get off to a fast start and keep most of the play in the Sparta end. They were unable, however, to beat the Sparta keeper. Finally, it was Sparta who opened the scoring in the last minute of the opening period. Kudrna started the play at the half-boards, found Petr Kumstat down low, and he made a nice cross-pass to Pech at the far post, who one-timed it in before Fredrik Pettersson Wenzel could slide across.

Despite striking first, Sparta still went to the dressing room in the first intermission trailing on aggregate. However, in a three-minute span in the middle of the second period they turned the game, and the series, on its head. 

Sparta came out with more jump in the second period, and at 27:51 they tied the aggregate. Pettersson Wenzel made a save on a long shot, but defenceman Juraj Mikus was pinching in to put in the rebound. Then 2:11 later they took the lead on a 2-on-1, when Pech elected to shoot. And then, just 29 seconds later, Lukas Cingel scored Sparta's fourth goal of the game.

HV71 coach Johan Lindbom called a timeout, and although they did stop the bleeding, they were never able to get any sustained offence going the rest of the way – HV71 had only 8 shots on goal over the last 40 minutes.

“I just think Sparta played with more desperation than we did,” said HV71 forward Erik Christensen. “They needed to win with a couple of goals and we made some mistakes defensively and obviously we didn’t generate anything offensively ourselves. It’s tough to win when you don’t score goals.”

“I think we finally played the game we wanted to play,” said Sparta forward Petr Vrana, “solid and get the puck out on defence in a good way. And the offensive chances we had we executed very effectively.”

With an aggregate difference of just two goals, the series was still up for grabs for most of the third period, but with three minutes to go Pettersson Wenzel misplayed the puck, giving Kudrna an easy goal, and wrapping up the Quarter-Final berth for Sparta.

“It’s a long road ahead of us, Vrana said about advancing farther in the CHL. “Right now we will concentrate on the next round. It will be two hard games against SC Bern. There’s going to be a lot of fans in Bern and we’ll surely be in for a real tough game there.”