A power-play goal on a brilliant individual effort by teenaged defenceman phenom Rasmus Dahlin with 6:49 to play gave the Frölunda Indians a 3-2 in Liberec, and a one-goal advantage heading home next week. The goal capped off a great performance put on by the projected top pick of next year’s NHL Entry Draft.

Despite being underdogs, the White Tigers were urged on by their enthusiastic home fans and played an inspired first period, in which they outshot Frölunda 12-10. They got some early chances that were turned away by Johan Mattson, but Martin Bakoš opened the scoring with his tournament-leading eighth goal near the period’s midpoint when he fired a shot from in close upstairs and off the back crossbar.

After the slow start, Frölunda came out flying to start the middle period and struck twice. After some enormous pressure, Sebastian Stålberg pulled his team even at 24:15 on the backhand and then, just over four minutes later, captain Joel Lundqvist gave Frölunda the lead on the power play with a shot from the slot.

Just seconds after the Lundqvist goal, however, Mattias Nørstebø was assessed a double-minor for high-sticking. Although Liberec weren’t able to score on the four-minute power play, they did manage to stem the Frölunda onslaught and generate some offensive chances, which kept them very much in the game heading to the third period.

Liberec tied it early in the third period when Lukáš Krenželok converted a rebound on the power play, with Bakoš recording his second point of the game. However, Frölunda went back to the power play with less than nine minutes to play and that’s when Dahlin came through. He had tried a similar move in the second period and was stopped by Roman Will, but on this occasion he didn’t miss, cutting in from the boards and beating the Czech goalie on the backhand.