Sparta Prague gets Presidents’ Trophy in Czech Republic
The final round of the 2011-12 Czech Extraliga regular season was played yesterday. Sparta Prague finished in first place and received the Presidents' Trophy. The scoring champion is Liberec centre Petr Nedvěd.
The history of the Presidents' Trophy in the Czech Extraliga is short. It was established in 2009-10 and the first winner of the regular season awarded with the trophy was Plzeň. One year later it was Třinec who grabbed it; the team which also got the cup for the playoff champion. This season, the award goes to Sparta Prague. Sparta demonstrated the best regular season record (27-8-10-7) and finished in first place with 107 points, 8 ahead of second-place Plzeň 1929.
Sparta Prague - Slavia Prague 2-3 SOIt should be a big-style celebration for Sparta. Sparta knew it couldn't lose their first place before the game and wanted to raise the Presidents' Trophy after a victory over their biggest rival - Slavia. But although Sparta was in the lead until the 58th minute, Slavia tied the score and won the game in the shootout.
Brno - Zlín 4-1Zlín owned the chance to grab the last direct ticket to the quarterfinals in its hands before the game in Brno. Zlín would have finished no worse than 6th if the team earned any point. But if you give up two shorthanded goals during the first ten minutes of play, your chances of victory are much slimmer. With the victory, Brno earned 8th place and will start the preliminary round in their home arena. Zlín finishes 7th and has to fight for the quarterfinals in the best-of-five series of the preliminary round.
Vítkovice - Třinec 5:3With Brno's victory over Zlín, Vítkovice earned an opportunity to advance to the quarterfinals directly instead of Zlín, but they had to defeat Třinec. After only 23 seconds of play, the first shot of the game ended up in Třinec's net. By the sixth minute it was 2-0, and the home fans started to think about an easy game. But Třinec made it 2-1 within 30 seconds and tied the score at three in the second period. Involution of the thriller came eleven minutes before the last horn from a stick of a 39-year old veteran Viktor Ujčík and during the last minute Jiří Burger scored an empty-net goal to make it 5-3.
Č. Budějovice - Kladno 2-1Because Zlín lost the game in Brno, Kladno had a chance for a direct advancement to the quarterfinals as well as Vítkovice, but only if they won and Vítkovice lost to Třinec. Kladno blew a 1-0 third period lead and lost 2-1, thereby not having to watch the result of Vítkovice. With their fate alread decided before Sunday’s victory, České Budějovice goes to the quarterfinals directly. Kladno will fight in the preliminary round.
Pardubice - Litvínov 8-2Pardubice said goodbye to the regular season with a huge victory over Litvínov. Jan Kolář scored 4 points (3+1) and was the biggest star of the day. Pardubice climbed to third place and will play against Vítkovice in the quarterfinals, while Litvínov goes to the playout.
K.Vary - M. Boleslav 4-2This was the only game of the round in which neither team had a chance to make the playoffs. Both Karlovy Vary and Mladá Boleslav will participate in the playout and, because of that, this was a very important result in terms of the relegation round. The relegation round against the 1.liga winner will be played by the worst team in the league standings after the playout. At the moment, Mladá Boleslav is in that position.
Liberec - Plzeň 5-3Both teams, Liberec and Plzeň, knew where they would finish, so the most interesting question of the game was who would earn the trophy for winning the 2011-12 league scoring title. Would it be Petr Nedvěd of Liberec or Radek Duda of Plzeň? Both Nedvěd and Duda recorded one point, so the 2011-12 scoring champion of the Czech Extraliga regular season is Petr Nedvěd with 61 points (24+37). Duda finished second with 59 (24+35).