Oilers and Lorenskog in Norwegian Finals

Get Ligaen's Semi-Finals are over and one thing is settled already: Lorenskog will be the second CHL entry for Norway next season.

Lorenskog had defeated Valerenga Oslo in 5 games already on tuesday and so they could lean back and watch game 6 and 7 of the other series from their couches. The 4-1 victory in the series that was tied 1-1 after both teams could win their initial home games by a 3-2 score, but then got decided in 3 straight wins for Lorenskog, got them into the Finals.

Due to the CHL regulations the Lorenskog team was certainly rooting for Stavanger, because since the Oilers already grabbed up their CHL spot next year by finishing first in regular season, the second spot would go to the champion. And if that Champion happened to be Stavanger as well to the finalist.

This means that Lorenskog secured their CHL spot yesterday by another team winning. However, the way to the finals was a tough one for Stavanger.

In an odd start to a best-of-7 series Storhamar and the Oilers kept winning road games all through games 1 to 4. After that the pattern shifted to a more common setup. In game 5 Rudolfs Balcers, Tommy Kristiansen and Mathias Trettenes secured the first home win for the Oilers in a 3-0 shutout to gain the first lead in the series with 3-2.

Two days later Storhamar returned the favour by the same score. Mikael Zettergren and twice Jacub Berglund gave the home team something to cheer and forced a final game in Stavanger.

In the last game Erik de la Rose got Storhamar in front after only 3:46 minutes just to see the lead fade away 29 seconds later through Philippe Cornet. Balcers got his next playoff goal at the 15:59 minute mark to give the advantage back to the Oilers. The game was decided when Dan Kissel could add the 3-1 three minutes into the second period. Storhamar could not come back anymore and so the Oilers will move on to the Finals against a well rested Lorenskog team.

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