Lulea Hockey got a late power-play goal from Christopher Mastomaki to give them a 3–2 home-ice victory and a 1-goal aggregate lead heading into the second half of their Champions Hockey League Quarter-Final.
Lulea Hockey 3–2 Frolunda Gothenburg 
by Derek O'Brien, with files from SVT
LULEA – In last season's Champions Hockey League Final, Lulea Hockey had to come from two goals down to beat Frolunda Gothenburg. When the two teams met again in the same arena to open this year's CHL Quarter-Final, they never trailed. Three times Lulea took the lead and twice Frolunda answered, but Christopher Mastomaki's power-play goal with 2:03 remaining gave Lulea the 3–2 win.
“We didn't play good today. The worst part was the passing quality, and I know that we can play a lot better than this,” Frolunda coach Roger Ronnberg evaluated.
Lulea came out with a lot of energy and Karl Fabricius opened the scoring in the 6th minute on a rebound. That was the game's only goal until Frolunda tied it early in the second. Mats Rosseli Olsen carried the puck deep into the Lulea zone, beat a defender wide and found captain Joel Lundqvist heading to the net. Lundqvist's one-timer beat Joel Lassinantti just inside the far post and it was 1–1.
That score lasted all of about 11 minutes when Viktor Ekarv re-directed Marcus Oscarsson's pass from the point past Johan Gustafsson, but Frolunda went right back to the attack and tied it late in the period courtesy 18-year-old defenceman Jacob Larsson.
It appeared the teams might be playing toward a draw, but Lulea was given a chance after a controversial bench minor call against Frolunda with 3:31 to go while trying to make a late change, then not returning the correct players to the ice.
“We wanted to take a timeout, but I wasn't able to get in touch with the referee for a long time,” Ronnberg explained to SVT after the game. “On top of that we're in the middle of a line change where we have four d-men on the ice and with a defensive-zone faceoff, of course I wanted to get my two wingers out on the ice. But then I'm suddenly not allowed to change players and he calls a delay-of-game penalty.”
That gave Lulea the opening they needed. Mastomaki, who had assisted on Lulea's first goal of the game, was stationed in front of the net and gathered the loose puck, went to his backhand and slid it in for the eventual game-winning goal.
After the goal, a water bottle was thrown from the Frolunda bench in frustration, leading to another bench minor and a chance for Lulea to take a two-goal aggregate lead. However, the game ended without any further scoring.
“Of course it's important and a great advantage going into Game 2 with one goal to go with, and to be honest I think we played a really great game against them last week,” Lulea head coach Joakim Fagervall said about his team's recent 4–3 SHL loss in Gothenburg. “It's a new game next Tuesday, with new prerequisites and the pressure is totally on Frolunda.”
However, this story is far from finished. One only needs to remember that in the last two series Frolunda went home trailing – down 1 goal to Litvinov in the eighth-finals and 2 to Ingolstadt in the Round of 32 – and both times came back to win the aggregate score. They have their work cut out for them again heading back to Gothenburg.
“I'm quite cool knowing that we have to win that game,” Ronnberg said looking ahead. “I believe in this team and to be honest we can't play much worse than we did today. We have to ransack ourselves with a lot of stuff, but we'll go home and play much better on home ice next week!”
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