Kloten returns to Playoff Final after 3 years

With game 6 heading back to Kloten the Flyers were motivated to give the almost sell-out home crowd a (possible) last game at Kolping Arena. With 8 minutes played Hasani was sent to the bench for roughing although Sebastien Schilt had originally been assessed with the minor penalty. Kloten played a powerful game with the man advantage but couldn't get on the scoreboard yet. Just minutes later Fribourg shift changes didnt' work too well and so they were assessed with a minor penalty for to many men on ice. This time Kloten's powerplay wasn't as convincing as it had been previously. From looking at the puck possession neither Team had the upper hand and so the first period ended without a goal.

With 18 seconds played in the second period (honestly, I wasn't even ready) when Simon Bodenmann scored the first goal of the game, assisted by Matthias Bieber. With 6 minutes played Tommi Santala was sent to the bench for Hooking. And a minute later a player from each Team was sent to cool down for Roughing (Vandermeer) and Holding (Sprunger). With the powerplay counting down Kloten wasn't able to get the puck out of their own zone and so Niklas Hagman (Dubé, Pouliot) stood exactly right to score the first goal for Fribourg. With 29 minutes played, Adam Hasani was benched for Slashing. Kloten wasn't able to create any countable chances. 13 minutes were played when Klotens Bühler and Romano Lemm passed a long pass on Stancescu who got the puck passed Conz with a wrist-shot. Conz was to blame partly as he couldn't secure the puck. Just 13 seconds later Simon Bodenmann created some space in the left corner of the offensive zone and passed the puck to Tommi Santala who scored his 5th goal of the playoffs and forced Fribourg to take an early Time-Out. The Flyers now clearly played with more passion, more energy and more drive but also a little too cocky when Bühler was benched for Slashing with a little less than 2 minutes to go in the second period but the Flyers boxplay worked well.

The 3rd period started with the return of Bühler from the bench and within 18 seconds Fribourgs Top scorer Benjamin Plüss was benched for Hooking, giving the Flyers another powerplay opportunity but once again didn't end with a goal. 6 minutes into the last period the Flyers started an attack at the blue line, Janick Steinmann played a cross pass to Josh Hennessy who curved around Conz and scored the 4th goal for Kloten. Fribourg now had to give all they had left if they wanted to score 3 more goals in the remaining 11 minutes. Pouliot didn't exactly help his team when he went to the box for Slashing but Kloten's powerplay just wasn't a factor tonight. Instead, Flyers defenseman Eric Blum and Jérémie Kamerzin exchanged some pleasantries which ended with Kamerzin being ejected from the game with a '5 + '2 + '2 and a '2 + '2 minute penalty for Blum. With less than a minute to play, the crowd now got off their seats and chanted "Finale, ooh, Finale, oooh".

Over the whole Series, Kloten was the better Team, they showed a strong reaction after loosing game 3 7:1, winning the next game 5:2 and also after game 5 when the Final was in the grasp of their hands, receiving the equalising goal just 4 seconds before the end of the game and loosing in overtime. In game 6 the defense wasn't always as stable, especially the first goal revealed that they weren't 100 percent in the game but what they showed in the rest of the game is truly worthy of a finalist. For Fribourg the season ends here, after playing in the Final in the previous year. The Team around Coach Hans Kossmann will have to wait another year to play for their first title ever.

With the 4:2 series win, the Flyers bought themselves a ticket for the Final. The last time this happened was in the 2010/2011 season. the opponent will have to be decided in a game 7. At the time of this article the ZSC Lions were lost to Genève-Servette 5:2. 

Spectators @Kolping Arena: 7'287

Head Referees: Brent Reiber, Roman Kaderli
Linesmen: Daniel Stricker, Simon Wüst

SOG:
KF: 1. 18 / 2. 8 / 3. 16
HCFG: 1. 4 / 2. 13 / 3. 7

Kloten Flyers: Gerber; DuPont, von Gunten; Blum, Schelling; Randegger, Vandermeer; Hoffmann, Frick; Bieber, Santala, Bodenmann; Steinmann, Liniger, Hennessy; Stancescu, Romano Lemm, Bühler; Aurelio Lemm, Jenni, Herren.
Injured: Stoop, Du Bois / Sick: Mueller

Fribourg: Conz; Kwiatkowski, Ngoy; Helbling, Abplanalp; Kamerzin, Schilt; Huguenin, Lauper; Plüss, Dubé, Hasani; Hagman, Bykov, Sprunger; Monnet, Pouliot, Mauldin; Vauclair, Ness, Fritsche.
Injured: Huber, Jeannin

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