Elitserien: Weekly update
28 Nov 2011 | Fredrik Pålsson
Eurohockey.com takes a look on last's week action in Elitserien.
HV71 still leads the league despite two losses on home ice this week. 2-4 against MoDo was followed by 1-3 against Luleå and HV71 seems to have lost some form.
Despite many injuries on key players Frölunda are in second place and are only two points behind HV71 with one game less played. Frölunda's games this week both ended 3-3. Frölunda won one penalty shoot out and lost one.
Brynäs are one of the strongest teams of the league right now and could have been in first place if they had held on to the 2-0 lead at home to AIK, but instead they lost 2-4. But 3-1 at home to Skellefteå was followed by a shootout win away to Färjestad to give Brynäs five points this week.
Skellefteå are fourth but they have shown rather bad form lately. But after the loss to Brynäs they managed to get points at home to Frölunda.
Fifth placed Luleå collected four points this week a shootout win at home to Linköping and a strong win away to HV71, as always Luleå's defense is impressive.
Linköping are in sixth place but can't be happy with the season so far. An important 2-1 win at home to Färjestad gave them a good start to the week and two points away to Luleå was good when Andreas Jämtin was sent off with match penalty for elbowing which gave him a two game suspension. But the third game in five days was a bad one and Linköping lost to last placed Timrå.
Färjestad who recovered from a terrible start to the season now seems to have lost form again. However they managed to get four points this week the lost against Linköping was followed by an important 6-4 at home to Växjö and a shootout loss at home to Brynäs. Mikael Johansson is in good form with five points in the last two games.
The big winner of the week is AIK with three wins that took them to a playoff spot. Coming back from 0-2 to win 4-2 against Brynäs gave them confidence to beat both Timrå and MoDo 5-4.
The other team from Stockholm, Djurgården, has the same amount of points as AIK but is behind on goal difference. But with one game less played they have the chance to pass on their own hand. They got one point away to Frölunda and won the important game against Växjö 4-2.
Växjö who are now in tenth was the only team that didn't take any points this week. Even if he still is the top scorer of the league Mike Iggulden has lost some of his scoring touch from the beginning of the season and the team has made more mistakes than earlier. Can they come back to good form?
Eleventh place is a huge disapointment for MoDo. They have been very uneven so far and this week was no exception a strong win away to HV71 was followed by 4-5 at home to AIK.
Timrå are still last and have nine points to Växjö in tenth place to avoid the playdowns. The key game against AIK was terrible in two periods and AIK had 5-1 before Timrå came closer to 5-4. Timrå now has nine straight losses to AIK. Luckily for Timrå, they now have five straight wins against Linköping and three of Timrå's five regular time wins this season has been against Linköping. Other positive news, new signing Damien Fleury scored in both his first two games.