Skellefteå AIK has won the Swedish Hockey League finals, defeating Rögle BK four games to one.
“It feels absolutely fantastic,” coach Robert Olsson told TV4, according to HockeyNews.se. “I won my first championship in Skellefteå on the visiting team. I’m very happy to win at home in Skellefteå. It feels damn good.”
Although the club has been playing hockey since the 1940s, this is only the fourth national title for Skellefteå, who previously won in 1978, 2013 and 2014.
After finishing third in the regular season, Skellefteå swept Linköping HC in the quarterfinals and then beat Frölunda HC in a tough, gruelling seven-game semifinal series.
With a 2-0 shutout in the deciding game, goaltender Linus Söderström won the Stefan Liv Memorial Trophy as playoff MVP.
Skellefteå was led offensively during the season by Oscar Lindberg and defenseman Jonathan Pudas. The lineup included a mix of veterans and young prospects, including Axel Sandin Pellikka, Elias Salomonsson and Anton Olsson and forwards Zeb Forsfjäll and Simon Robertsson.
The team’s captain, Oscar Möller, missed the entire season with exhaustion syndrome.
“It’s a strange feeling,” Möller said in an on-ice TV post-game interview in street clothes. “I have not been involved at all during the season, only had contact with them on the sidelines. You get a little moved when they ask you to come down on the ice. Of course, I am grateful for that
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