After last week’s first leg, Färjestad Karlstad travelled to take on the reigning champions the Frölunda Indians holding a 6-3 aggregate lead, but they would still need another good showing as the two Swedish sides battled it out again to make it through to the Quarter-Finals of the 2019/20 Champions Hockey League.

For Frölunda, they couldn’t have asked for a better start to the game. Within just over five minutes of action, they had cut the deficit to one. After three minutes, Viktor Ekbom had opened the scoring for the hosts after a great pass from Patrik Carlsson for his first goal of the competition. Moments later and on the powerplay, Frölunda grabbed a second, once again some pretty passing set up the goal by Simon Hjalmarsson. As quickly as the deficit was reduced to one and with a secondary assist on the goal, Ryan Lasch recorded his 60th ever assist in the CHL.

Färjestad got themselves on the scoresheet with a bit of luck. The credit on the goal going to Linus Arnesson, but it was a pass intended for Marcus Nilsson that took a deflection off of Nicklas Lasu’s stick, and past Johan Mattsson to make it 2-1 to Frölunda on the night, but 7-5 in favour of Färjestad overall where it remain after the first period of action.

It took a while in the second for Frölunda to get themselves back on the scoresheet, but eventually Ryan Lasch managed to squeak one past Markus Svensson midway through the second, to make it a one goal game on aggregate, and that sparked even more offence from the reigning champions, as less than two minutes later as Joel Mustonen scored his second of the tournament, levelling things at 7-7 overall and forcing a goaltending change for Färjestad but they didn’t quit despite the comeback, as Gustav Rydahl poked the puck across the line after Mattsson couldn’t stop an initial shot, putting them ahead by one again late in the second period.

Frölunda had an early chance in the final period to tie things up again as they had a five on three powerplay, and an extended period with a one man advantage following a 2+2 penalty against Johan Ivarsson, but despite some great shot blocking initially, eventually Nicklas Lasu squared things up on aggregate, and just moments later he was at it again, with the hosts still on the powerplay, Lasu tucked one past Arvid Holm to make it 9-8 in favour of Frölunda with their fourth powerplay goal of the evening. Then as time was running out for Färjestad, Lasu completed the natural hattrick after a tasty rebound landed right in front of him, making it 7-2 on the night, and a long shot into the empty net by Theodor Lennström finished the comeback, securing their spot in the Quarter-Finals with an 11-8 final score on aggregate.