Bratislava (Slovakia) Apr 3: The winner of the regular season of the Slovak ice-hockey premiership HKM Zvolen entered the opening round of the playoff quarterfinals with a close victory over HC MikronNoveZamky.
In the second Friday fixture, HK DuklaMichalovce was down 0-4 after the first period against HK DuklaTrencin but produced a superb rallying effort to turn the match around and triumph 5-4 in the end.
NoveZamky did not get intimidated by the prospect of battling the best team of the regular season in the playoffs and took an early lead in Zvolen when Tibor Varga scored from close range. But the home team answered six minutes later and then turned things around in the second period with Marek Viedensky'spowerplay goal that changed direction midflight on a ricochet only 45 seconds in.
Milos Kelemen's shorthanded rebound put Zvolen ahead by two and made his team hungry for more but NoveZamky's Finnish goalie Henri Kiviaho (36 saves total) stood fast and did not allow any more goals. His teammates tried to push the game into overtime by pulling him off the ice but only managed to cut the deficit to 3-4 20 seconds before the final horn.
Elsewhere, things were not looking good for HK DuklaMichalovce during its first playoff performance ever. The visitors from Trencin were up 4-0 after the first period, led by Peter Sojcik's two powerplay goals.
But like the mythical Phoenix, Michalovce rose from the ashes in the second period after substituting its goalie and answered with four straight goals of its own to unexpectedly tie the game. The home team's rallying effort was crowned in the final period when its veteran forward Marek Bartanus scored his second goal of the night to bring Michalovce to a well-deserved 5-4 victory.
Source: Xinhua