Slavia celebrates 110th anniversary with shootout win

Czech hockey legend Augustin Bubník acknowledges the
crowd before dropping the puck between captains Martin
Straka (left) of Plzeň and Marek Tomica of Slavia. Photo:
Pavel Vrtiška, hc-slavia.cz.

It is sometimes said that O2 Arena is too large for the needs of the Czech Extraliga, and perhaps that's true on many nights. But when a special occasion takes place, it can definitely provide the needed big-league atmosphere.

The pre-game ceremony involving Slavia stars from the past and the appearance of both teams, sporting uniforms of years gone by, gave everyone the feeling that this was a special night. And when the game got underway, the home team wasted little time in bringing the crowd to its feet.

Petr Jelínek scored for Slavia just 39 seconds after the opening face-off, but Plzeň 1929 showed that they weren't just going to be polite guests on this evening. Jakub Jeřábek set up league scoring leader Tomáš Vlasák to tie the score seven minutes later. It was the first of 3 assists on the night for Jeřábek, who was the Czech captain at the World Junior Championships, and the first of 2 goals for Vlasák.

After a scoreless second period, the teams traded 2 goals each in under 10 minutes in the first half of the third period, and then the sticks went silent again, as regulation time and then overtime finished with the score tied 3-3. After the first round of shooters finished with the shootout tied 2-2, Tomáš Svoboda came for his second attempt and scored to give Slavia the lead. Goaltender Miroslav Kopřiva then stopped Martin Straka to end the game.

Radek Duda, the Plzeň winger who has recently been in the news for his involvement in a traffic incident in Karlovy Vary last week, was notably absent from their lineup. Also missing was defenceman John Slaney of St. John's, NL, who has now missed the last 7 games with a concussion. Earlier in the year, he missed 11 games with a broken jaw.

Despite the loss, Plzeň picked up a point, and is now tied for ninth place with Energie Karlovy Vary, who lost 5-3 in Mladá Boleslav. Falling out of the playoff picture for now is Kometa Brno, who lost 5-2 on home ice to Mountfield České Budějovice. Once tied for third place, Kometa is 3-1-0-14 in its last 18 games on the 3-2-1-0 points scale. Climbing to eighth place is Benzina Litvínov, who now has 4 wins and a shootout loss in the 5 games since making a coaching change with their surprising 3-1 victory over first-place Oceláři Třinec.

Třinec now shares first with Bílí Tigři Liberec, who shut out Vagnerplast Kladno 3-0. Rounding out the night's action were two more shutouts: PSG Zlín over Sparta Praha 3-0 and Eaton Pardubice over a floundering Vítkovice Steel squad, 4-0. Once league-leaders, Vítkovice is now tied for third with Zlín, 7 points behind Třinec and Liberec.

Plzeň climbs the ladder, Brno free-falls

Back on November 19, the Association of Professional Clubs stripped BK Mladá Bolselav, HC Plzeň 1929, and HC Vagnerplast Kladno 22, 19, and 6 points, respectively, for using improperly registered players in some of their early-season games.

The ruling seemed like a death sentence for the three clubs in the 2010-11 season and, indeed, for two of the clubs it has been. Mladá Boleslav and Kladno are buried at the bottom of the standings; the only thing left to decide is which one will finish last and face a relegation series against the First League winner. But Plzeň, who dropped from seventh place to 12th with the ruling, 13 points out of a playoff spot, are now within 2 of getting back into the top 10.

Plzeň celebrates Jaroslav Modrý's winning goal on Sunday.
Photo: www.hcplzen.cz

The Indians are currently riding a five-game winning streak, the latest win coming Sunday night over Mountfield České Budějovice, 3-2. Windsor, CT's Nick Johnson assisted on Jaroslav Modrý's game-winner midway through the third period. In that stretch, they have put 12th-place Sparta Praha 10 points in arrears and now have 53 points. Within their their sights are Benzina Litvínov with 55, Kometa Brno with 56, and Energie Karlovy Vary with 58.

The chase for a spot in the top 10, and a playoff position, was aided by the fact that all three teams they are chasing lost on Sunday. Litvínov lost 4-2 to league-leading Vítkovice Steel, Brno lost 2-1 on home ice to Mladá Boleslav, and Karlovy Vary got walloped 7-1 by Bílí Tigři Liberec. Brno, who were in third place a month ago, are running in the opposite direction of Plzeň. They have won only once in their last 12 games and are now in danger of missing the playoffs, a prospect that seemed unthinkable not long ago. Kometa hosts Litvínov in a huge game Tuesday night.

As for Plzeň, they host Sparta on Tuesday before heading on the road to play in Liberec Friday and Litvínov next Sunday. The match-up with Sparta was slated to be the final installment of the season in the battle of Newfoundland defencemen, John Slaney and Doug O'Brien. However, Slaney suffered a concussion on Friday night in Karlovy Vary and missed Sunday's game. His status for Tuesday is unknown. Slaney missed 11 games earlier this season with a broken jaw.

Sparta wins last game before Spengler Cup

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Tipsport Extraliga played its lone round of game sandwiched between the breaks for the Channel One Cup and Christmas.

Yorick Treille (7) and David Vyborný (9)
congratulate goaltender Tomáš Pöpperle after
Sparta's win over Kometa Brno. Photo: Jan
Beneš, www.sporting-photo.com.

One game went Tuesday, with Sparta Praha winning 3-2 on home ice against Kometa Brno. They were aided by two assists from defenceman Doug O'Brien of St. John's, NL. In the first period, he set up Yorick Treille, who fired a rocket over Kometa goaltender Sasu Hovi's right shoulder to give Sparta a 1-0 lead. Treille, who was born in France, played for the Notre Dame Hounds of the Saskatchewan Junior League and then in the NCAA with U.Mass-Lowell. He recently signed a contract extension to remain with Sparta through the 2012-13 season.

In the third period, after the team killed off a two-man disadvantage lasting nearly a minute, O'Brien assisted on the eventual winning goal when he found Michal Broš at the side of the net on a power play to give Sparta a 3-1 lead. Roman Erat cut the lead to 3-2 in the late going, but it wasn't enough.

For Sparta, it was their final game before going to the Spengler Cup, which begins December 26 in Davos, Switzerland. They will play in a group with Genf Servette of Switzerland and SKA St. Petersburg of Russia, whose lineup includes Alexei Yashin and Maxim Afinogenov.

"The Spengler Cup's broadcast on Canadian TV, so friends will get a chance to watch it," commented O'Brien. "That's the closest I'll get to being home (for Christmas)."

Unfortunately for O'Brien, neither of Sparta's round-robin games on December 27 and 28 will be televised in Canada, but all teams advance to the quarter-finals, at which point all games will be on either TSN or TSN2. The first place team in each group advances directly to the semi-finals.

In the Czech Republic, all tournament games can be seen in Czech on Eurosport 2.

On Wednesday, the other 12 Extraliga teams were in action.

St. John's NL's other Extraliga player, John Slaney, picked up a goal and two assists but it wasn't enough as Plzeň 1929 fell 6-4 on the road against Vítkovice Steel. Plzeň now trails Benzina Litvínov by 11 points for the 10th and final playoff spot. The win gives Vítkovice sole possession of first place in the league, as Oceláři Třinec fell 3-2 at PSG Zlín.

Most Extraliga teams return to the ice for the next round of games on Sunday.

Newfoundland's Slaney and O'Brien face off in Prague

What difference does five and a half weeks make?

The last time Plzeň 1929 visited Sparta Praha, back on October 29, Sparta won 3-0 to leap over Plzeň in the standings. On Tuesday night, Sparta prevailed 4-3 and they again jumped ahead of their West Bohemian opponents in the standings. That doesn't seem odd until you consider that Plzeň was stripped of 19 points in the interim.

After that October 29 game, Sparta went 1-1-0-10 (on the 3-2-1-0 points scale) in its next 12 games to plunge into 12th place in the 14-team league. Since then, they've won two in a row, including Tuesday's game, to climb back up one notch to 11th. The team's struggles reflected in the crowd, with only 3,318 in attendance.

On the other side was Plzeň 1929. Between the October 29 and December 7 games at Sparta, they posted a record of 8-1-1-2, and would now find themselves in sixth place, if not for the 19 points they were penalized for dressing improperly-registered players. A serious blow, to be sure, but it hasn't seemed to have negatively affected their play.

"We get told a little bit about it," said John Lammers of Langley, BC. "All we know is we lost 19 points and we've just got to forget about it and play hard."

Plzeň was led offensively by the line of Nick Johnson, Radek Duda, and Martin Straka, which scored all three of the team's goals. Straka scored twice in the first period, including a power-play marker on a slapshot with four seconds left in the period to send the visitors to the room with a 2-1 lead.

Straka also showed he still has wheels at age 38 when he beat Petr Ton in a race for the puck in the second period to prevent Ton from getting a breakaway. Moments later, Sparta's Yorick Treille (a Frenchman who played Junior A hockey in Saskatchewan for the Notre Dame Hounds and NCAA hockey for UMass-Lowell) did get a breakaway and was hauled down by Jaroslav Modrý, resulting in a penalty shot. Treille made good on the attempt to tie the score.

Nick Johnson ties the score in the third period. Photo
courtesy Jan Beneš, www.sporting-photo.com.

With Sparta leading 3-2 with under 8:00 to play in the game, Windsor, CT's Johnson bunted home an airborne puck on a wild scramble to tie the score, but just 31 seconds later, Tomáš Kůrka scored the winning goal for Sparta on a stoppable-looking shot that goaltender Petr Přikryl was visibly upset with. It spoiled an otherwise fine performance by Přikryl, who made the save of the night in the second period when he stoned Radek Smoleňak with a toe save from point-blank range.

Karel Hromas and Marek Bartánus also scored for Sparta on the night. The last time these teams met, Tomáš Pöpperle recorded a shutout against his former team. Despite allowing 3 goals this time, he picked up the win, thanks to some rare goal support from his team.

Doug O'Brien and game-winning-goal scorer Tomáš Kůrka.
Photo courtesy Ladislav Adámek, www.getfoto.cz.

"Scoring a few goals, which is a good thing," said St. John's, NL's Doug O'Brien, explaining the biggest reason why the team's managed to win two in a row. "We've had trouble scoring goals lately. But two wins, that's the main thing. We want to get some wins under our belt and start climbing in the standings. We're working hard. In practice we've been working hard and it's shown the last two games."

John Slaney (left) trying to keep Petr Kafka in check.
Photo courtesy Jan Beneš, www.sporting-photo.com.

O'Brien wasn't the only Newfoundlander in the game. On Plzeň's blueline was John Slaney, also from St. John's. Slaney was immortalized in Canadian hockey history when he scored the game-winning goal against the Soviet Union to clinch the gold medal for Canada at the 1991 World Junior Championships. For O'Brien, who is 12 years Slaney's junior, he is definitely somebody to look up to.

"He's a legend, I think. Everybody looks up to him. He's played, what, about 20 years? Everybody knows him, for sure."

Slaney played the game with a low shield to protect the recently healed broken jaw that kept him out of the lineup for 11 games, though surprisingly not longer.

"(I returned) about three weeks early," he said after the game, "It's nice to get back and help the team. Tough loss tonight but lately things have gone better."

Sparta is now in 11th place with 33 points, 7 behind Benzina Litvínov, who currently occupy the 10th and final playoff position. Plzeň is three points behind Sparta, but have two games in hand.

Slaney, Straka return and contribute to Plzeň win

Just hours after the announcement by APK Director Stanislav Šulc that three teams in the Tipsport Extraliga would be stripped of points for using improperly registered players, two of those teams faced off against each other at ČEZ Arena in Plzeň.

HC Plzeň 1929 took to the ice against HC Vagnerplast Kladno in a match-up between two teams that face an uphill climb to make the playoffs in light of recent events. Of the two teams, Plzeň would have to be considered much more likely to make it, and their road back would be aided by the return of two of their best players.

After missing 11 games with a broken jaw, John Slaney of St. John's, NL made his return to the lineup and scored in the game's third minute on a shot from the slot to give the home side the early lead. Before getting hurt, Slaney had 6 points in 10 games, and was the team's leading scorer among defencemen.

Slaney wasn't the only player returning to the Plzeň lineup, as team captain and General Manager Martin Straka got back into the action only a week after undergoing knee surgery. He played on a line with the North American duo of John Lammers and Nick Johnson and, with the game tied at 2 late in the second period, the trio delivered the game-winning goal thanks to hard work in front of the net that has become the trademark of the Lammers-Johnson combo.

Despite the fact that Plzeň 1929 earned their 12th win of the season, a total that was not affected by the recent ruling, they now have only 16 points and sit in 12th place; 9 behind Sparta Praha and 13 behind Slavia Praha for the 10th and final playoff spot.

Other results from Friday:

PSG Zlín 5-3 HC Mountfield České Budějovice
HC Benzina Litvínov 2-1 HC Sparta Praha
HC Energie Karlovy Vary 3-2 HC Ocelří Třínec (SO)
HC Kometa Brno 3-2 HC Vítkovice Steel
HC Slavia Praha 5-4 HC Eaton Pardubice (SO)

And from Thursday:

Bílí Tigři Liberec 0-6 BK Mladá Boleslav

Note that, in European sports, the home team is typically listed first in results.

A tough week for Plzeň

Last season, with the help of a few imports from North America, HC Plzeň 1929 finished first place in the Tipsport Extraliga before bowing out in the quarter-finals. This season, things haven't gone quite as well. Still, with four North Americans on their roster, the "Indians", as they are known colloquially, are likely to command more attention in North America than any other team in the league.

They currently have defensemen John Slaney from St. John's, NL and Nick St. Pierre from St-Étienne, QC and forwards John Lammers from Langley, BC and Nick Johnson from Windsor, CT. To Canadians, Slaney is by far the most noteworthy name, by virtue of his winning goal at the 1991 IIHF U20 World Championships followed by his lengthy career in the NHL and AHL. Currently, however, Slaney is on the sideline. He broke his jaw October 12 against Mladá Boleslav and is due back in mid-December.

Last Friday night, the rest of the Plzeň team paid a visit to Prague's TESLA Arena to take on HC Sparta Praha. Sparta had a pair of North American defensemen in their lineup, Brian Salcido from Los Angeles, CA and Doug O'Brien who, like Slaney, hails from St. John's.

It was Salcido who broke the goose-egg in the first period with a shot from the high slot that beat goaltender Marek Mazanec inside the post. For Salcido, who was known as an offensive defenseman in the AHL, it was his second goal of the season.

Minutes later, it appeared that the Plzeň duo of Lammers and Johnson may have tied the game, but referee Milan Minař blew the whistle first, claiming that Sparta goaltender Tomáš Pöpperle had covered the puck. Lammers explained, "I took a shot and there was a rebound lying in the crease. Johnson whacked it in but unfortunately there was a quick whistle."

After that, Pöpperle was perfect the rest of the way, posting 21 saves and earning his second straight shutout.

Like Pöpperle, O'Brien played for Plzeň last season, which made the win feel even better. "Yeah, defintely. It feels great to beat 'em. Lot of old buddies so it feels good to beat them. They beat us last time in a close game and tonight was a pretty close game."

For the past few games, O'Brien has been paired on the blueline with Michal Gulaší, who is one of Sparta's harder hitters.Though it wasn't an overly rough contest, Gulaší was a noted physical presence on the back end. "He throws the body around a lot. It's a big part of his game. He loves to do it. I love watching him."

After Salcido's first period tally, Karel Hromas scored late in the second and again midway through the third period to give Sparta a 3-0 victory. The win gave Sparta 22 points on the season and moved them one ahead of Plzeň into the tenth place in a tight race for playoff spots. O'Brien added, "It's a big win for us. With the new coach (Miloš Holaň) that's two in a row for us. The guys are excited. Back to back shoutouts; Pöpperle's played great for us."
 
As far as Plzeň is concerned, they were last season's regular season champions and their record to this point is certainly a disappointment. Unfortunately, an even bigger disappointment would be in store a few days later.

On Tuesday, Czech Ice Hockey Association Competition Director Stanislav Šulc dropped a bomb, stating that three teams, Kladno, Mladá Boleslav and Plzeň, had played games with improperly registered players and would likely be forced to forfeit points accumulated in games where the ineligible players participated.

The players reported were Kladno's Jindřich Kotrla, Mladá Boleslav's Tomáš Divíšek, Jiří Marušák and Peter Fabuš, and Plzeň's Tomáš Frolo and Petr Přikryl.

As Kotrla played only eight games and Kladno was almost certain to finish in last place anyway, they are least affected by this ruling. However, for Mladá Boleslav and Plzeň, the results could be disastrous. Mladá Boleslav would lose 22 points and Plzeň 19, making the playoffs a virtual impossibility. What's more,  Boleslav would drop below Kladno into last place, meaning they might end up having to play a series to avoid relegation to the First National League.