With only four teams left in this year’s Champions Hockey League, one of the two Semi-Finals matchups features and all Swedish affair, but the two teams have very different histories in the competition as Rögle Ängelholm take on Frölunda Gothenburg.
For Frölunda, they begin the penultimate round of their title defence on the road. It’s a side that knows how to win and will be looking towards their fifth CHL title if they can make it to the Final.
Standing in their way is a team that hasn’t been this far in the competition before, because until this year, they hadn’t been in the competition at all.
Rögle are the last of this year’s debutants left in the CHL, and they’ll be hoping to keep their debut season alive for at least one round longer, but it’ll be a tough test going against the four-time CHL Champions.
For Rögle, they’ve had great success at both ends of the ice. With 36 goals as a team, spread fairly evenly around the line-up, with their top goal scorer Adam Tambellini with five of those goals. They’ve also had a lot of success in net, with the duo of Calle Clang and Christoffer Rifalk putting in some great performances to keep goals against to 21.
The debutants have had some great individual performances as well, Lucas Ekeståhl Jonsson has elevated himself into the MVP discussion with a 12-point season, including 10 assists, the most by a defenceman.
For Frölunda, well not much has changed since they last one the title, even if that was two-years ago now.
They still have their veterans performing at high levels, with the CHLs top scorer of all-time Ryan Lasch once again turning in performance after performance with a league-leading 13 assists and leading with 16-points.
Joel Lundqvist is also up to his usual best with a six-point season. They have the edge in terms of total goals, with 43 on the season, seven coming from Patrik Carlsson and six from Elmer Söderblom, and in net it’s been mostly Matthew Tomkins they’ve called on, with the Canadian goalie featuring in seven games in his CHL debut season so far, and the tandem of Tomkins and Niklas Rubin has kept the goals against to 21, like their Semi-Finals opponents.
When the puck drops on 4 January, previous stats won’t matter though, as the two sides will battle it out overtwo games to be the last Swedish side remaining and advance to the Final.