Weekly Recap: Skellefteå makes six straight

Covid-19 has a hold of the Malmö Redhawks currently, with players infected and the non-infected in quarantine. As a result, the Redhawks didn't play any games last week and their games scheduled for this Tuesday (Färjestad) and Thursday (Frölunda) has been postponed.

The other 13 teams did however play and Skellefteå continued their hot streak. Coming into the week with three straight wins, they grabbed an important two points by beating rival Luleå in Luleå Tuesday (5-4 after a shootout). They followed this up by grabbing another six points through 4-2 against HV71 and 2-0 against Djurgården, thereby extending their winning streak to six straight games. Despite the impressive run, the yellow-and-black are still in sixth place, having gained two points on Örebro in fifth.

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The other team to win the games they played last week was Växjö. The Lakers beat Luleå 2-0 before edging out Brynäs 5-2. This brings their winning streak to four and Sam Hallam´s side is on a ten game point streak, stretching back to December 28th. During this streak, Växjö has six regulation time wins, two overtime wins and two overtime losses. The run has, somewhat sneaky, taken Växjö to second place in the standings, surpassing both Frölunda and Luleå - both on a bit of a skid.

Luleå lost three out of three games last week, one being the shootout loss to Skellefteå and another being an overtime loss to Rögle. Nevertheless, they find themselves on a bit of a downward trajectory, having only scored three goals in 89 shots during the span.

And while on the subject of shots, Frölunda managed to find new ways to lose. The once very difficult team to play in Gothenburg lost all their games in a three game homestand last week. On Tuesday they lost 2-1 to Linköping, on Thursday they went down 5-4 to Leksand. On Saturday they fired on all cylinders during the first period against Örebro, outshooting their opponent 20-3 in the first period. With no goals on the board after 20, Örebro instead went on the attack and scored twice with Robert Leino notching both in a beautiful manner. Rodrigo Abols then finished it off with his 3-0 goal in the third. During the game, Frölunda had 76 shot attempts, 41 of which finding their way to the net, forcing the brilliant Jonas Arntzen to make a save.

Linköping and HV71 are battling it out in the bottom of the standings. Both teams each won one game last week, with Linköping beating Frölunda Tuesday. HV71 on the other hand beat Linköping in Linköping Saturday, thereby surpassing the red, white and blue in the standings, leaving them in the very bottom. HV71 are by no means out of the woods on this one, but that game might very well prove important down the line. Linköping have yet to play recent signed David Rautio in a game, and they signed former Färjestad and Växjö forward Alexander Johansson on Sunday. Earlier in the week, they signed Tyler Morley from Skellefteå. Morley had a goal and an assist in his debut Tuesday, being the difference against Frölunda.

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On the player side of things, Karl Fabricius played his 1000th game in the SHL, regular season and playoffs combined. The Luleå alternate captain was honoured before the game against Rögle Saturday, receiving flowers from Rögle general manager Chris Abbott. As a trivia side note, Fabricius got his A to the chest during the 2014-15 season. Who the captain was? Chris Abbott.

Jaedon Descheneau scored the most points last week, with his one goal and four assist, leading the revitalised Brynäs´ way. Descheneau and Joakim Lindström of Skellefteå tied for most assists of the week. Worth noticing is that no player had more than two goals to his name last week; Nine players scored twice. Five goalies posted a shutout last week. Samuel Ersson (Brynäs) and Jonas Gunnarsson (HV71) had their first shutouts of the season, Arvid Söderblom (Skellefteå) had his second, Arntzen posted his third and Viktor Fasth (Växjö) had his fifth shutout of the season, most in the SHL. In 2017-2018, Fasth had six shutouts and back in 2011-2012 he had seven, which is the most shutouts so far during a single season for the veteran goalie.

Rounding things out with what is coming this week, there are 16 games currently planned for the week. Some of the games to keep an extra eye on are the top team showdown between Växjö and Örebro Tuesday, the classic meeting between Djurgården and Färjestad Thursday and what could be an explosive outing between Rögle and Skellefteå Saturday.