One step remains to the first league title for Třinec

09 Apr 2011 | Petr Polák

Will the biggest success in the 16-year long Extraliga history of Třinec come true? Maybe we will know today: On Friday evening, the Dragons won the third finals game in a row and took a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series. One victory for Třinec is remaining to the end of the Czech Extraliga season and to the first league title in the history of Třinec.

Game Three (Fri, Apr 8):
Vítkovice – Třinec 1:4 (1:1, 0:2, 0:1)

A tough fight, that was in the Vítkovice plan before the third game of the series. The first home game of the third club after the regular season brought a different game style in comparison to the first two games in Třinec.

Vítkovice was the team that had to make a game and their players tried to. The Knights reached two power plays but weren’t able to use any of them. Still, a few seconds after the end of the second one, a Pohl shot was deflected twice and Vítkovice took the lead by Vrána’s goal.

The home team was hoping to keep the lead until the first intermission at least, but it failed. The referee Šindler made a mistake and in times when one home player was already sitting in the penalty box; he penalized also Jiří Burger from Vítkovice for high sticking, although Burger was the first victim of a Lojek foul and just hit Lojek into the face while he was falling to the ice.

Suddenly, there was a 2-men power play for Třinec instead of 4-on-4 game and the Dragons used the power play and tied the score – concretely Martin Růžička was the man and extended his series with one goal a game to 16.

It was a psychical knock-down for Vítkovice. They all were feeling violation and frustration. “I had a pulse about 250,” said penalized Jiří Burger who had to watch how Třinec was tying the score from the penalty box.

"Our fault was, that we didn’t set right with it," another Vítkovice forward Petr Pohl told, “we should show our force and let it go. Sadly, we didn’t.”
It was another Vítkovice after the first Třinec goal on the ice. Their hockeyists were without energy, they were losing the puck encountering and their goalie Málek was the only man who gift-over a standard performance.

Obversely, Třinec reached tons of fresh physical and psychical powers, was creating the game and added another three goals during the second and third periods and took the third victory in the series.

If they will win one another game, they will also reach the cup for the league winners. A Vítkovice way for the title is still as long – 4 games.