Frölunda Gothenburg fought hard against fellow SHL side Rögle Ängelholm in last night’s Champions Hockey League Semi-Finals First Game, but in the end, they were unable to turn around the 5-3 score, despite a late push for the net, and head into next week’s Return Game two goals down on aggregate score.
Frölunda’s captain Joel Lundqvist was on the ice for the game and spoke with us after the final buzzer.
Mistakes cost usFrölunda's Joel Lundqvist
“It was a tight game,” he started, “we made some mistakes in the second and third periods and they capitalised on that.“
Johan Sundström scored the first goal of the game late into the first period to put the visitors in front. But their lead was slashed by two second-period goals from Rögle.
Rögle made the game 3-1 at the very start of the final period before Leon Bristedt got on the scoresheet to make it 4-1.
Many would have counted Frölunda out, but the four-time CHL Champions know how to get back into games - two goals from Nicklas Lasu and Ryan Lasch in the span of only two minutes and the score was suddenly 4-3.
But, sadly for the Frölunda, in-form Ted Brithén found the back of Matthew Tomkins’ net for the third time of the night completing his hat-trick and scoring the final goal of the 5-3 game
“It wasn’t the best game from us,” said Lundqvist, “we need to clean our game up.”
“We haven’t played in three weeks, so it’s been hard getting up to game speed.”
Frölunda last played a professional ice hockey game three weeks ago, on 14 December. Their last game before their winter break was their CHL Quarter-Finals Return Game against Leksands IF which ended 3-3.
Our first period was pretty sloppyFrölunda's Joel Lundqvist
“We have been training a lot,” said 39-year-old Lundqvist “our first period was pretty sloppy, but we can’t blame the loss on that.”
Despite losing by two goals, the stats of the game are very level – both teams recorded 36-ish shots on goal and kept penalty minutes to a minimum.
“As I said, mistakes cost us and we need to analyse them and work on them before the return game next week,” he concluded.
Frölunda and Rögle will play their Return Game on 11 January at 19:00 in the Frölundaborgs Isstadion.