HV71 Jonkoping are perfect with nine points after three games and will win Group P after a 5-2 win over Red Bull Salzburg. The two teams meet again Friday. Read more in Gamecentre. 

For the third straight year, Red Bull Salzburg and HV71 Jonkoping are battling for CHL group supremacy. After the first meeting in Salzburg, the advantage goes to HV71, who won 5-2. 

The Salzburg home crowd was loud and into the game, but it was the Swedish visitors who had the better start and got the first goal at 9:15, with the team's captain and Cramo Top Scorer Martin Thornberg with the high wrister from the slot. Despite getting outplayed over the opening 20 minutes, however, the Red Bulls did go to the dressing room tied, thanks to a goal with 45 seconds to go in the period – first Linus Soderstrom robbed John Hughes on a great chance, but the goalie was in no position to stop Thomas Raffl from putting in the rebound.

They say familiarity breeds contempt, and tempers began flaring in the second period, which had 44 total penalty minutes, making special teams key. HV71 regained the lead on the power play in the 25th minute, with Ted Brithren receiving a pass in a great shooting position and beating Bernhard Starkbaum before the Salzburg goalie could get set. Then Salzburg evened it again just 1:29 later while shorthanded, with Brett Olson picking the corner from a sharp angle.

"My shorthanded goal was perfectly set up by the two guys we had on the point, so I didn't have to do much at the end,” Olson said.

Three minutes after that, however, Simon Onerud put HV71 back up to stay. The latter part of the period was marred by fisticuffs as tempers boiled over.

It was still a close game heading into the third period, but HV71 played tight defence, limiting Salzburg to six shots on goal, and not much in the way of a good scoring chance. A power-play goal by Lias Andersson with 5:54 to play put HV71 in firm control, and a late empty-netter by Brithren wrapped it up.

A fight between Christoffer Persson and Daniel Welser in the dying seconds was the culmination of a night of bad blood between the teams, and sets the stage for what should be an interesting re-match on Friday in Jonkoping. 

Olson said, “At the end we got too many penalties, so you can't win a hockey game that way. We had our chances too, but the whole team has to work harder and harder."

"We played pretty well, made a few mistakes for their goals, but put good pressure on in the middle period," said Salzburg coach Greg Poss. "Five of our players just got back from the national team, so not everything worked how we wanted tonight."

"We started the game pretty well, but then it was a difficult game because of a lot of penalties," said HV71 coach Johan Lindbom. "We drove hard to the net and got some goals. It was important to win so we can win the group."