By winning the away leg of their home-and-away series by four goals, Frölunda Gothenburg have gained a seemingly insurmountable lead heading into their home leg against Tappara Tampere. Coaches Roger Rönnberg and Jussi Tapola spoke after the first game about it.

by Leo Runsas

TAMPERE – In the first leg of their home-and-away series, Frölunda Gothenburg got a 5–1 in in Tappara, and afterward head coach Roger Rönnberg was obviously happy with the result. He also gave credit to Tappara.

"I don't think that the score reflected the game. I think that Tappara was better than that and it was more of an even game. We were a bit lucky on offence and we had a good goaltender."

Rönnberg also gave credit to couple of his players.

"Our young defenceman Jakob Larsson was good. Our goaltender (Linus Fernström) was also good."

With a four-goal lead heading into their home half of the series, Frölunda are now in good shape to advance to the quarter-finals. Rönnberg, however, is approaching it more as a separate game that he wants to win outright. He knows it won't be easy as his opponents will be desperate.

"I think that we have to play better against Tappara next week in order to win that game. We have to play better overall, with the puck and without the puck. We have to keep focused and follow our game plan the whole 60 minutes."

After the game, Tappara head coach Jussi Tapola expressed no surprise about how well Frölunda played, acknowledging that his team knew how strong an opponent they were up against.

"Frölunda is a team of high quality and we knew it. We were able to keep up with their level of play at times, but nowhere near the whole game."

Tapola also admitted that Frölunda was the better team in the big picture.

"We put everything on the line, both mentally and physically. I assumed that we were ready to play against this kind of opponent, but as we could see right from the beginning, we weren't. Frölunda was that much better, there is no denying it."

Tapola continued, “We had trouble getting into the attacking zone. The speed and the readiness of our game wasn't enough.”

In somewhat of a surprise move, Dominik Hrachovina played in goal for Tappara's despite Juha Metsola having played almost every game during the Liiga season so far. Hrachovina was solid in a CHL group game against Ocelari Trinec, but wasn't quite up to that level this time. However, as his team was out-shot 38–19, Tapola wouldn't put all the blame on the young 20-year-old goalie.

"I don't blame Dominik for the goals. I thought that the team would be playing for him and would be fired up,”the coach reasoned. About his decision to start Hrachovina, he explained, “Juha needed a rest, especially now because he's joining national team for the Karjala tournament. We need two goalkeepers all the time and tough games are good experiences to grow from. Dominik had one of them now."