Skellefteå keeps on winning

Skellefteå won the Swedish Championship and are big favourites this year. And what can stop them? Today they took their third straight win with 3-1 away at Leksand. And already after twelve rounds they have a nine point lead ahead of Luleå. And then they even haven't played at their best level yet and last season's top scorer Bud Holloway still hasn't scored a single goal. Can they keep the motivation to defend the title? That feels like the biggest threat right now.

Behind them Luleå with Linus Klasen in good form is the number one contender. In third place is now Växjö. They were at the bottom after a bad start but have now climbed quickly with five wins in the six latest games and they are the only team that has beaten Skellefteå in regular time so far. Today they took a strong 3-0 win away to Brynäs after 37 saves by Scott Munroe. Despite being much up and down Brynäs is fourth in the very close table.

Newcomers Örebro are fifth after some really good games but today's 1-4 at home to AIK was a setback. The game was disturbed in the first period as the fire alarm went off just as AIK's early 2-0 goal was under video review. The smoke came from the kitchen but there was no fire and the game was resumed. An important win for AIK after over 40 saves by Daniel Larsson, AIK still in 11th however.

Despite having three players top six in scoring Linköping is only in sixth place. Pär Arlbrand is smoking hot with 22 points in 12 games. It's a very close table with only seven points between Luleå and eleventh place.

Behind Linköping there are some clubs that have had some turbulence. Frölunda is seventh despite that leading player Joel Lundqvist has been quite mediocre so far. A few days ago it was announced that he is playing with a small stress fracture in his back, a good reason to his weak performance. Frölunda has also been in a dispute with the fans regarding the events at the home games and just as most other teams Frölunda's spectators numbers is going down.

Leksand is eighth but has made interestings signing in Fabian Brunnström and Matt Lashoff. Another club with a lot of transfer activities is MODO. From being a big talent school it feels they have gone to a club that changes players every week. As reported earlier defenders Salmela and Cumiskey has joined the team and now another defender, Sean Sullivan has been released. Cumiskey scored twice in today's win against Färjestad. But there are still some talent in MODO as well,Gustav Possler left the game scoreless but has already scored eight goals, expect to see him at the World Juniors in Malmö.

Färjestad is a classic club with problems only tenth place and bad attendance numbers, but still there are no panic there as no roster changes has been made.

Another classic club with even bigger problems are HV71. The club is last with only eight points, a terrible result for a club that usually are one of the main title contenders. Today they had the lead 2-0 against Frölunda but lost 2-4. Gustaf Wesslau was one of the best goalies last year but hasn't been good at all this season but he doesn't get much help either. Aaron Gagnon was the first player to be kicked out of the team and probably we will see more changes. How long is Ulf Dahlén allowed to stay as head coach?

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