Leksand back in SHL after heroic season

01 Apr 2016 | Fredrik Pålsson

Halfway through the season they were last in HockeyAllsvenskan now they are back in SHL after a thrilling playoff against MODO.

Leksand was relegated from SHL last year and was expected to be a top team in HockeyAllsvenskan. But everything went wrong from start and halfway through the season the team was last. But things changed, a new coach, Per-Erik Johnsson was hired and the team climbed enough in the standings to reach the qualification round to the playoff round to SHL.

The qualification round didn't start very well but after some results in their favouir they still had the chance of winning it in the last round, but they needed to win big in the last game against local rivals Mora which seemed unlikely, but so they did, 6-0 was enough to move on to the next round.

In the next round they went off to beat Tingsryd in two straight games. And suddenly the team that was last for a few months ago was in a best of seven playoff round to reach the SHL. On the other side of the ice was MODO, another classic Swedish club that has raised so many stars like Näslund, Forsberg and the Sedin twins. After a very bad season they now had to fight to stay in SHL.

And after winning the first game 5-0 and the second game 4-0 it felt like MODO would have a safe trip to stay in the SHL. But as so many other times this season Leksand bounced back and managed to tie the series with two 2-1 wins. But in game five MODO thrashed Leksand again and won 7-1 and once again Leksand was down but they managed to get up again and won on home ice 5-4.

The seventh game was played in Örnsköldsvik today and MODO dominated most of the game and 50 shots on goal. Despite a stellar effort by Henrik Haukeland in net Leksand found themselves down 1-3 with time running out. Alexander Ytterell fired off two hard shots that tied the game. The first one deflected of Jon Knuts and the second went straight in with only 52 seconds left of the game.

And in overtime Leksand finalised the heroics when Brock Montpetit stole the puck, raced free, and even if he fell as he took the shot he managed to find the upper corner, a goal that took Leksand back to SHL again and sent MODO down to HockeyAllsvenskan.