In their first ever Champions Hockey League Semi-Final game, HC Pilsen got a hat trick from American defenceman Conor Allen, but that’s all the offence the Czech team would get while the Frölunda Indians scored six, meaning they’ll take a three-goal advantage into next week’s return leg. Rhett Rakhshani and Ryan Lasch had three points each for Frölunda, who are seeking their fourth trip to the CHL Final. Lasch, the CHL’s all-time scoring leader, was a question mark to play this game as he had an injured knee, but he now leads this year’s competition with 20 points.

Special teams were the big story in this game, especially in the first period, which saw a goal on the powerplay and two shorthanded. Pilsen got the game’s first powerplay and Milan Gulaš, their big offensive star, very nearly opened the scoring right off the attacking-zone faceoff when he carried the puck to the net and beat Johan Gustafsson with a brilliant move before sliding the puck just wide of the far post. Then later on the same powerplay, Pilsen had trouble getting out of their own zone, Viktor Ekbom sent a shot to the net and Joel Mustonen scored the shorthanded goal on the rebound at 5:45.

Six minutes later, Frölunda were on their first powerplay with Allen in the box, they worked the puck around the Pilsen zone well, and Rakhshani finished off the play down low, faking the pass and then stuffing it in past Dmitri Milchakov.

On the PK again, Pilsen looked in danger of being down by two goals and maybe more after a first period in which they outshot Frölunda 15-8, but with just over a minute to go in the opening frame, Allen forced a turnover, won a race for the puck in the Frölunda zone, got a shot on Gustafsson and then put in his own rebound for his first of the game to cut the deficit in half.

Early in the second period, Pilsen got some momentum on a powerplay and, although they failed to score, they kept up the pressure and Allen tied it with his second goal of the game, taking a pass from Petr Straka, making a move to beat a defender and finding the net through a crowd.

That was the high point in the game for Pilsen, though, as it was all Frölunda after that. Ryan Lasch put the home team back in front in the 28th minute on a rebound and then Anders Grönlund restored the two-goal lead less than two minutes later on a bullet from the point through a screen.

That was the end of the game for Milchakov, who allowed four goals on 18 shots, but Dominik Frodl was given a rude welcome to the game when Simon Hjalmarsson made it 5-2 at 31:06, making it three Frölunda goals in a span of 3:12.

Rakhshani’s second goal and third point of the game on the powerplay with 12:03 to play made it a four-goal difference before Allen completed his hat trick two minutes later – a goal that didn’t mean a whole lot for this game but it could on aggregate. That seemed to give Pilsen some momentum and they looked for more to make their job next week a bit less difficult, but they couldn’t score another on Gustafsson, who made 24 saves on the night.