Swiss teams Fribourg-Gottéron and HC Davos complete semifinals

29 Dec 2012 | Dennis Mende

It was a high-scoring day 19 goals in two matches when Mannheim and Ufa had to leave competition in the quarterfinals.

The special teams were decisive for the victory of Fribourg-Gottéron against Adler Mannheim. First Greg Mauldin brought the Swiss side in front while his team was shorthanded at 02:57. At the start of the middle period Benjamin Plüss was able to double the lead in power play. Around "half time" also the Germans appeared on the scoreboard for the first time but Maxime Talbot restored the two-goal advantage just five minutes later. With the start of the third period Matthias Plachta cut the lead again to just one before Christian Dubé in a power play and Julien Sprunger finnished the job for Fribourg.

In the other match of the day the fans even got to see a lot more goals. Igor Musatov scored the equalizer for Salavat Yulayev Ufa just eight seconds after Josef Marha had scored the game opener for HC Davos at 02:02. Still this couldn't avoid that Loui Eriksson and Joe Thornton would let the hosts run away with a two-goal lead until 06:57. Not enough Santeri Alatalo and Petr Sykora even made it 5-1 before the first intermission. Now Ufa searched for their luck with a lot of offensive power and Alexander Svitov, along with Denis Parshin cut the Davos lead to just two at the start of the second period. A double by Patrick Kane shortly afterwards decided the game nevertheless. In the last 20 minutes the home side concentrated on their defense and only allowed another two goals through Antti Pihlström and Igor Mirnov for a spectacular 7-5 win that earned them the tickets for the semifinals.

Both Swiss teams only could meet each other in the final depending on the outcome of the semifinals.

Semifinals (Sunday, 30 December 2012):

Team Canada - Fribourg-Gottéron
HC Vítkovice - HC Davos

Final (Monday, 31 December 2012):

Winner S1 vs. Winner S2