Aron Chmielewski’s goal with 2:50 to play broke a 1-1 tie to give Oceláři Třinec the win in Malmö and a one-goal lead heading to their home ice next Tuesday.

The first period was conservatively played with each team going to the power play once, but neither generated much offence on those advantages. Daniel Zaar very nearly put Malmö on the board with the teams at full strength, however. Just shy of the 11:00 mark, his shot from the face-off circle rang off the goalpost behind Šimon Hrubec.

The Redhawks did open the scoring early in the second period, though. Frederik Storm did a good job of forcing a turnover just inside the Třinec blueline and fed a nice pass to Nichlas Hardt, who skated in alone on Hrubec and beat him high to the glove side. Třinec then had a couple of quick power plays after that but, again, were not able to get much offence going.

Late in the middle period, Hrubec robbed Max Görtz from point-blank to keep his team within a goal, and that was huge as the Steelers were able to tie the game in the first minute of the third. Martin Adamský orchestrated the goal, carrying the puck deep into the Malmö zone, drawing Oscar Alsenfelt out of position, circling the net and finding Vladimír Svačina in front for the empty-netter.

This time it was Malmö who got the power-play opportunities but neither team was able to capitalize a man up. It looked like the teams were about to play to a draw in the opening 60 minutes of this two-game set, but with just under three minutes to play, David Musil found Chmielewski right on the doorstep, and the Polish winger made no mistake, giving his team a great result in the opening leg.