There was a chance at revenge for Skellefteå AIK who played their first home game of the 2021/22 Champions Hockey League season. The Swedes welcomed HC Lugano to town, hoping for a much better result than the 5-1 loss they suffered when they traveled to Switzerland on Game Day 1.

Both sides traded quality chances early on, and Skellefteå nearly found a quick break through. Joakim Lindström stole the puck at the blueline before going in all alone, and it looked like he’d outwaited Niklas Schlegel in the Lugano net, but a quick kick of the pad denied the backhand effort from resting in the back of the net to keep it scoreless.

An early powerplay was all it took for the scoring to begin though. Lugano went to the man advantage and wasted no time in opening their account. Some good puck movement around the zone saw the puck up top to Santeri Alatalo who fired his shot towards goal, and then Calvin Thurkauf showed some brilliant hand-eye coordination to deflect the speeding puck past Gustav Lindvall to make it 1-0 to the visitors.

Just after the midway point of the period, Lugano added a second. Skellefteå left Daniel Carr way too much space out in front of the net, and as Luca Fazzini spotted it and fed him the puck, Carr showed why he was wearing the top scorer jersey, easily finding the back of the net to give Lugano a 2-0 lead which stuck until the end of the opening frame.

It was a dream start for Skellefteå coming out for the second period, as they cut the deficit to one less than three minutes in. Adam Mascherin ripped a quick backhand shot after a scrum in the corner to pull one back. However, minutes later, Fazzini re-opened the two-goal lead for Lugano. After he was impeded on his attempt, a penalty shot was awarded, and Fazzini made no mistake on his attempt to make it 3-1.

Not deterred by the setback, Skellefteå survived a few close calls but managed to get themselves back into it. Mascherin showed some dazzling skills to open a lane, getting past his defenceman and rounding the net, before playing it out front and as Albin Sundsvik got the better body position, he was on hand to shoot from in close to cut the lead to one once more.

It looked like Skellefteå had tied the game up, Lindström who was denied in the first with a spectacular save seemingly had an empty net to shoot at, but Schlegel went one better, pulling off an early candidate for save of the season to keep Lugano ahead, and just to add salt to the wound, the puck then found it's way down the other end of the ice to Fazzini who went in alone, this time not on a penalty shot, but for a close slapshot to make it 4-2, and added a third on the powerplay minutes later to complete the second period hattrick as Lugano scored five against Skellefteå for the second game in a row, but this time after just 40 minutes.

After being the hero in the second period, Fazzini saw himself sent to the box midway through the third, which allowed Skellefteå a chance to creep back into the game, which they managed to do through a slapshot by Oskar Nilsson.

From there, the physical play ramped up, but the goalscoring stopped, as the two teams traded blows on the body more than the scoreboard for the rest of the period, as Lugano held on for a 5-3 victory.