Three Swedish Clubs Advance To Champions Hockey League Semifinals

With three semifinals finished, three Swedish-based clubs managed to use their aggregate leads from last week’s first legs and advance to the Champions Hockey League semifinals. The last quarterfinal to finish between EV Zug of Switzerland and Lukko Rauma of Finland saw the aggregate score after the first leg overturned.

Ilves Tampere (FIN) 0 – Luleå Hockey (SWE) 3
(Luleå advances on aggregate score 6-2)

Following a 3-2 home-ice win last week, Luleå just needed to tie this game to advance. Through two periods, it remained scoreless, despite a 21-9 shots advantage for Ilves. In the third period, Brian O’Neill scored on the power play, burying a rebound after Frédéric Allard’s point shot. Allard also assisted on Pontus Andreasson’s 2-0 goal and Oskari Laaksonen added a late empty-netter. Matteus Ward made 29 saves for the shutout.

This marks the third time that Luleå advances to the Champions Hockey League semifinals, having won the competition in 2014-15. This is the end of the road for Ilves, which won its first eight CHL games this season in regulation before falling twice to Luleå.

KalPa Kuopio 2 (FIN) – Brynäs Gävle (SWE) 3
(Brynäs advances on aggregate score 8-3)

Following a 5-1 defeat last week in Gävle, KalPa had a steep hill to climb on home ice this week and got an early power-play goal by Jaakko Rissanen, but that’s as close as they’d get. Mattias Norlinder scored twice for Brynäs, with Nicklas Bäckström and Kieffer Bellows each recording assists.

Like Ilves, KalPa was unbeaten through the CHL’s regular season and round of 16 before falling to a Swedish powerhouse in back-to-back quarterfinal games. This will be Brynäs’ first appearance in the semifinals.

Frölunda Gothenburg (SWE) 2 – ERC Ingolstadt (GER) 2
(Frölunda advances on aggregate score 5-3)

Leading 3-1 on aggregate score and after one game and the first 20 minutes of a scoreless first period in the return leg, Filip Cederqvist gave Frölunda a two-goal cushion in the second period before Ingolstadt battled back with a pair of quick goals. Although Ingolstadt led the game, they still trailed by one on aggregate and pulled Nico Pertuch late. That allowed Max Lindholm to score an empty-net goal, which tied the game and gave Frölunda a two-goal aggregate victory.

Frölunda is by far the most successful team in this iteration of the Champions Hockey League, having reached the final five times and won it four times up until 2019-20. This is, incredibly, the Gothenburg-based club’s eighth trip to the semifinals.

EV Zug (SUI) 3 – Lukko Rauma (FIN) 0
(Zug advances on aggregate score 4-3)

Lukko had beaten Zug twice so far in this year’s CHL – once in the group stage and the first leg of this quarterfinal two weeks ago – but Zug scored three times in the second period of this one, which was enough to overturn the aggregate score and send Zug to the semifinals for the second time.

This was also the third meeting between veteran goaltenders Antti Raanta and Leonardo Genoni, and this was Genoni’s show, as the 38-year-old pitched a 30-save shutout. Offensively, Gregory Hofmann scored twice and Tomáš Tatar once, with Dominik Kubalík providing one assist.

It is now up to Zug to keep Switzerland's two-year reign as European club champions alive.

Semifinal matchups:

Brynäs Gävle (SWE) vs Luleå Hockey (SWE)
Frölunda Gothenburg (SWE) vs EV Zug (SUI)

The semifinals will be played in two legs on Jan. 13-14 and Jan. 20-21. The exact schedule will be announced by the CHL soon.

Three Swedish Teams Win Champions Hockey League Quarter-Final Openers Swedish clubs secure crucial first-leg leads, overpowering Finnish rivals and opening strong in Germany, setting the stage for the rematches in two weeks.