Sweden's Växjö Lakers headed into this Champions Hockey League Quarter-Finals series against a familiar opponent in Sparta Prague with a history that was very clearly against them. Until last night, the Swedes had lost 5/6 games against the Czech rivals on Europe's biggest club ice hockey stage.
But with a comeback win, this is hopefully the start of a turnaround that will culminate with another positive result in the Return Game of the series later in December.
"We were up against a really good goalie"Jörgen Jönsson, Växjö Lakers
"It was a really fun game," noted Växjö Head Coach Jörgen Jönsson after the game, "there was a lot of action and I think we stood up well."
The Swedes played very well on the road, displaying a disciplined and controlled game which saw them outshot and ultimately outscore the home team.
Despite producing 1.45 Expected Goals (lower than Sparta's 1.58), the Swedish visitors were active in front of the home team net and had many more chances aside from the two they converted on. Is that a shame given they have just a slim one-goal lead in the aggregate-scoring series?
"You always want to score more," admitted Jönsson, "but we were up against a really good goalie and sometimes you just can't get the pucks in."
"It's a tighter rink than we are used to here as well," he also added.
Scoring has been a larger issue for Växjö recently:"Domestically we are struggling with scoring a little bit, but we are playing well."
"We scored two today and let's hope we can build on that in the Return Game," concluded the Head Coach.
The Return Game between the Växjö Lakers and Sparta Prague will be played on Tuesday, 17 December at 19:00 CET in the Vida Arena.