EV Zug secure a spot in the Round of 32 with a 4-1 win over IFK Helsinki. Read more in Gamecentre.
If anybody thought EV Zug's performance in Group G so far was a fluke, those thoughts were erased with the team's strong performance in Helsinki to beat IFK – the team most assumed would win the group – for the second straight time.
After a scoreless first period, which was played rather defensively other than a lengthy 5-on-3 advantage for IFK Helsinki in the early going, Zug opened the scoring early in the second. Just 20 seconds in, in fact, Robin Grossman intercepted a clearing attempt and fed Carl Klingberg, who fired it off the post and in. Later in the period Klingberg got the play started for Zug's second goal. Niklas Backstrom stopped him on a breakaway, but he recovered the puck behind the net and fed Jarkko Immonen in front, who fired it home.
“It was a dangerous pass from their forward (Juuso Puustinen) and I read it. Great job by Klingberg afterwards,” Grossman said of his play leading to the first goal. On the second, which he was also on the ice for, he said, “I tried to get a stick there to block their pass and then put it forward. There was a race for the puck and Klingberg missed the breakaway, but afterwards it was a nice goal from Immonen.”
Teemu Eronen got IFK on the board a minute into the third period with a beautiful wrist shot on the power play, but any momentum they may have got from that when Zug answered on a power play of their own less than two minutes later – right off the faceoff, Lino Martschini fired it in.
That took the wind out of the sails of IFK Helsinki, who had trouble generating much offence after that and took two penalties. Immonen's second goal of the game into an empty net sealed the victory and the spot in the Round of 32 for EV Zug.
“You play this game to win and today we didn’t succeed,” sighed a disappointed Backstrom, who stopped 31 of 34 shots on the IFK goal. “Zug is a really professional team from top to bottom. They played a very disciplined game and didn’t lose pucks. Also, they forechecked hard and played solid in front of their own net. We didn’t really get any dangerous rushes going in these two games.”
"My team worked extremely hard," said a happy Zug coach Harold Kreis. "We knew we had to keep the pressure up and I think we worked hard on our goals. IFK had some chances but we came up with some big blocks. I think we worked hard on our 3-on-5 – that could have been a game-changer but we worked really hard. That's the important thing. Working hard on offence and defence, and they do it naturally, so that's the key right now."