The group stage opponents? Trip up North and German Goliath

The CHL group stage draw sent Sparta into a very difficult group of four teams of relatively equal strength. The club from Prague faced KalPa Kuopio from Finland, the Växjö Lakers from Sweden – a team with high ambitions – and finally German giant Adler Mannheim. Sparta had already met KalPa and Adler in previous years, but Växjö was a totally unknown opponent. However, not for Karel Pilař?, who played in Sweden.

Sparta started their CHL campaign with a Scandinavian mission. They were two goals down in the first game in Kuopio, but evened the score in the third period. In a wild finish, the Spartans had to tie the game twice more in the shootout before finally winning.

The Czech club then moved to Växjö, where they won 5–2, with the forward line of Kumstát – Pech – Rolinek scoring all five of the team´s goals. The rematch in Prague looked pretty one-sided as well, but the coaches couldn’t be satisfied after that game. Sparta had a 5–1 lead, but let Växjö score three goals in the third period to make it a nail-biting finish.

Two days later, the Spartans weren’t as lucky. KalPa took the lead twice in Prague, but the home side managed to equalize both times. Then Arttu Ilomäki’s goal halfway through the second period turned out to be the winner in a 3–2 win for Kuopio, despite Sparta having a clear 34–22 advantage in shots on goal.

With the four teams in the group being of relatively equal strength, Sparta had to fight for a playoff spot in their last two group games against Mannheim. First, they played in Germany, where Juraj Mikuš´s goal rescued a valuable tie with 43 seconds to go. The Czech side eventually lost in overtime, but the one point turned to be pure gold in the final countdown. This set up an all-important game in Prague with first place in the group at stake.

Sparta took the early lead at home, but fell behind 2–1 in the first minute of the second period. The home team didn’t give up, though, and scored three times in a row to open up a two-goal lead. Adler pulled to within one in the third, but Sparta added two late goals, including an empty-netter, for a 6–3 victory. With this, Sparta became the only Czech club to advance from their group into playoff stage.

Playoff Draw in Helsinki paired Sparta together with Linköping

In the Sparta camp, everyone seemed happy after the draw. “We had one goal, which was to advance to the playoffs. We made it, it was awesome and we had lots of fun. It was a good comparison of us and the top European teams. The attitude of the players has been outstanding,” coach Josef Jandač? said in praise of his team.

The first leg of the playoff series was played in the Czech capital, where Linköping took advantage of poor finishing by the Spartans and seized an important 2–1 road win. This meant that Sparta would have to win the second game in Sweden in order to advance to the quarter-finals.

Jaroslav Hlinka evened the aggregate in second minute of the second game, but his team struggled in front of opponent’s goal once again as they tried to take the lead, and Jonas Junland managed to tie the game score and regain the aggregate lead with 12 minutes to go. Sparta didn’t give up, though, and thanks to Jan Piskáček’s deflection of a shot from Martin Réway, the aggregate was once again tied.

It seemed that overtime is inevitable, but then it came. With one minute left, Sparta´s Robert Saboli? got a breakaway but missed. Then, in the dying seconds, Jacob Micflikier appeared alone in front of the goal, slapped the puck and sent it in with only two seconds remaining.

“I couldn’t believe what I saw. We didn’t deserve an ending like this after our play throughout the competition. I don’t know if it was just destiny or if we should blame our most experienced guys, who were scored on with two seconds on the clock,” Jandač stated after the game.

Sparta made an impact, but they want more next year

Despite the elimination, Sparta’s coach sounded quite confident. “We prepared well for the CHL in the summer. We had a big task in front of us to advance into the playoffs, which we accomplished in the end. It wasn’t easy. Our opponents were tough, but it was fun and we enjoyed every part of it. We can now build on this experience. The guys played with good passion,” Jandač? said right after the game, again praising his team.

The team´s top scorers were Martin Réway (2+6) and Lukáš Pech (3+5), both with eight points, while Jan Buchtele (3+2) had five points in the five game he played. Petr Kumstát had the best plus-minus on the team with a plus-5 rating, despite being on the ice for Micflikier´s late series-winning goal.

In the end, Jandač had only good words for his team: “I can’t say we were worse in the game. Actually, we were better in some situations, which I´m really happy about. It’s just too bad about the bitter ending.” Hlinka agreed with this: “I think we played quite well in the CHL, but we let it get away from us at the very end. We should have gone further,” he concluded after the unlucky game in Sweden.