Jesenice earns first points

HDD Jesenice and Jaca open the weekend of Continental Cup at Miskolc Arena in Hungary with different goals: trying to earn a pass for semifinals for Slovenians, avoid the last place for Spanish champion. When the puck takes the ice, it's immediately clear for the (few) spectators on the stands which will be the theme of the game: Jesenice leading the game and Jaca trying to bite on counter-attacks. After having wasted a capital chance, Ales Remar, well assisted by Marjan Manfreda, opens the score at 04:23. Jaca has a great chance to equalize on power play a couple of minutes later but incredibly Adrian Betran shots over the bar. Instead is goalie Jure Pavlic to denied the goal to Pablo Pantoja well blocking a deflection on debuting Pol Gonzalez pass. When Jesenice attacks, it's evident the difference of skills on ice: goalie Anders Alcaine makes some excellent saves to keep his team on tracks.

Before the first horn Jaca has another great chance with Felipe Corbo shorthanded but the forward, all alone in front of Pavlic shots on the goalie.

In the second period Jaca manages to survive to a power play but Alcaine has to surrender at 23:46 when Matevz Erman solves a messy action in front of the cage. Animated by the good start, Jesenice scores the third goal with an individual action by Miha Pesjak at 25:29 and looses another chance face-to-face with Rajsar. In a period dominated by Jesenice, Alcaine shows how the title of best goalie of Spain is deserved with several great saves, especially one on Manfreda around minute 28. While all are waiting for fourth goal by Jesenice, surprisingly Jaca breaks the siege and scores with Pol Gonzalez finishing a beautiful move by Corbo. Perez has a chance right after the goal but Pavlic blocks. The period ends with Jesenice again hammering the Spanish cage, with Alcaine denying the goal.

After 3 minutes in the last period Alcaine makes another great save on Pesjak and then on Remar while his teammates show again a difficult in the first moments of the period when Jesenice has the maximum effort. Pavlic makes the first save, an easy block on Corbo, at minute 50. The last part of the period is quite confusing, without many chances for both teams. Jesenice easily earns first points in the group and after all Jaca closes the game with an honorable defeat, but frankly seems both teams haven't the skills to compete for final victory.

MVP: Jure Pavlic – Felipe Corbo

Tweets by @eurohockey