Extraliga Round 39

Eurohockey.com's Petr Polák summarizes Round 39 of the Extraliga season, which featured three big match-ups that were all won by the road teams: Vítkovice in Třinec, Brno in Zlín, and Sparta in a duel of the two teams from Prague at O2 Arena, the home of Slavia. And after beating up on Kladno 8-2 last week, Liberec fell big in Plzeň 10-4.

The Extraliga's largest crowd of the season came to watch the Prague derby

 at O2 Arena on Sunday. Photo:  Pavel Vrtiška, hc-slavia.cz.

Slavia Praha 1 - Sparta Praha 2
Sprata had not beaten Slavia on its home ice for almost four years. Until yesterday. The key to Sparta's victory was the power play: Sparta went 2-for-4, while Slavia went 0-for-3. The game was played in front of the season's largest crowd: 11 284.

Oceláři Třinec 1 - Vítkovice 4
Last season's final series between these teams ended 4-1 in games for Třinec. The Třinec Steelers are the current league champions, but all four of this regular season's meetings with Vítkovice went to the Knights of Ostrava. Even though Třinec's Lukáš Bolf opened the scoring in the 27th minute, nine minutes later it was already 3-1 Víktovice. Bolf has been an untimely scorer for his team in recent weeks; in three of Třinec's last four games he has scored the opening goal, but they have lost them all.

Zlín 2 - Kometa Brno 3 (OT)
During this game the home team was in the lead twice, but in both cases Kometa was able to tie the score. Because it was 2-2 after three periods, the teams had to play overtime. Four minutes into the the extra period, Miroslav Holec scored the game-winner and Brno took two points in the standings.

Plzeň 1929 10 - Bílí Tygři Liberec 4
Liberec skated into this game with a four-game winning streak and coming off a huge 8-2 victory over Kladno, but Plzeň was on an even better roll; they had won 11 game a row and did not want the streak to end yet. Plzeň jumped out to a 4-2 first-period lead and then added five more goals in the second period, while Liberec scored just one. The teams traded goals in the third giving Plzeň 10 goals in a game for the first time in 19 years. The hero of the night was Radek Duda, who scored two goals and three assists, while Petr Nedvěd had two points for Liberec; the two are now tied for the league lead with 44 points.

Rytíři Kladno 3 - České Budějovice 1
Finally, after two weeks of the new year, Kladno won a game. Tomáš Knotek contributed a lot to this victory by socring two goals. České Budějovice was seeking for more luck in their shots with no big effect.

Mladá Boleslav 4 - Karlovy Vary 2
As the last-place team in the league's standings, Mladá Boleslav has had to play a relegation round against the best team of the 1.liga three years in a row. This year, all the players and the management of the club are looking for a change. But before the game against direct rival Karlovy Vary, the club was in the last position on the table again. Fortunately for Mladá Boleslav, the home team won this game and moved ahead of Karlovy Vary.

League Standings
	Club	GP	W	OW		OL	L	GF:GA	Pts
1	HC Sparta Praha	39	21	6		6	6	122:79	81
2	HC Plzeň 1929	39	21	6		5	7	140:102	80
3	HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice	39	19	3		5	12	131:95	68
4	HC Moutfield České Budějovice	38	20	3		2	13	107:93	68
5	Bílí Tygři Liberec	39	15	9		1	14	104:100	64
6	PSG Zlín	39	15	5		6	13	83:95	61
7	HC Vítkovice Steel	38	15	4		3	16	104:104	56
8	HC Oceláři Třinec	39	14	3		7	15	110:105	55
9	Rytíři Kladno	38	15	2		3	18	96:110	52
10	HC Kometa Brno	38	12	5		4	17	97:102	50
11	HC Verva Litvínov	39	11	7		3	18	101:127	50
12	HC Slavia Praha	40	13	2		5	20	99:122	48
13	BK Mladá Boleslav	40	11	2		5	22	86:124	42
14	HC Energie Karlovy Vary	39	11	2		4	22	102:124	41

Leading Scorers
	Player	Club		GP	G	A	Pts	+/-	PIM
1	Duda Radek	Plzeň		39	21	23	44	20	66
2	Nedvěd Petr	Liberec		36	17	27	44	1	52
3	Ton Petr	Sparta		39	20	23	43	20	6
4	Koukal Petr	Pardubice		38	16	22	38	13	38
5	Burger Jiří	Vítkovice		37	13	25	38	9	34
6	Straka Martin	Plzeň		39	12	26	38	5	14
7	Tenkrát Petr	Sparta		39	17	20	37	2	26
8	Gulaš Milan	Č. Bud.		36	15	20	35	6	40
9	Hübl Viktor	Litvínov		36	15	19	34	4	26
10	Kolář Jan	Pardubice		39	11	23	34	18	26

Standings and statistics are courtesy hokej.cz.