With so much riding on the game, everything happened in the 60th minute, when the Växjö Lakers tied the game and then Red Bull Salzburg took the lead back with Ryan Duncan scoring the winner with 16 seconds to go. As a result, the Red Bulls are on the verge of advancing. They need only one point from their final two games against SC Bern, or for the Växjö Lakers to concede at least one point to the Cardiff Devils over their last two.

The Lakers earned a 5-2 win in the first meeting between these teams and got an early leg up in this game as well, with Linus Fröberg scoring a powerplay goal at 1:47 on a great individual move down low, but the Red Bulls equalized with a powerplay marker of their own late in the period on Dustin Gazley’s howitzer from the slot.

The Lakers regained the lead in the 27th minute when Pontus Netterberg’s long shot beat a screened Stephen Michalek, but it was even again less than a minute later when Brant Harris picked the far corner. Just past the game’s midpoint, a heads-up pass from Robert Raymond sent Raphael Herburger in alone on Viktor Andrén and he scored to give the Red Bulls the first lead of the game.

After that, Växjö pressed hard for the equalizer but Salzburg resisted until a shot from Austin Ortega appeared to sneak in short side on Michalek with exactly four minutes to play, but upon video review the puck did not entirely cross the line. However, with Andrén pulled for a sixth attacker the Lakers did score with 35 seconds left when Fröberg banged in a rebound off the end boards.

It appeared the game was headed for overtime, and Växjö had a good opportunity to close the points gap on Salzburg, but not long after the centre-ice faceoff, play moved into the Växjö zone and Duncan picked up the puck below the goal line, cut in front and tucked it into the net for the winning goal.