Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Frölunda Indians have advanced to the Champions Hockey League Final. Since the relaunch of the European club championship in 2014/15, the Gothenburg-based team has now made five of six Finals and won three so far.
The club was established in 1938 but only won one Swedish title in the 20th Century – that coming in 1965. Since the turn of the millennium, they have added titles in 2003, 2005, 2016 and 2019, in addition to their wins in the Champions Hockey League – three and counting.
Five players have been members of all three CHL titles and are looking for a fourth – Patrik Carlsson, Niklas Lasu, Mats Rosseli Olsen, Sebastian Stålberg and Joel Lundqvist.
Lundqvist, the captain, just played his 1000th game in a Frölunda jersey in the team’s Semi-Final victory over Luleå Hockey, recording a goal and an assist in the comeback win. The 2016/17 CHL MVP who first joined the club as a 16-year-old, is the CHL’s all-time leader with 64 games played.
Ryan Lasch only has two CHL titles to his name so far but has several other accolades, most of which have been accomplished with Frölunda. He is first in goals (29), assists (61) and points (90), won the 2015/16 CHL MVP and has won two scoring titles so far and, barring something unforeseen in this year’s Final, will win a third. Lasch scored the aggregate-winning goal in Luleå.
Veteran leadership is supplemented by a seemingly endless supply of young talent. In the past, we’ve seen the likes of Andreas Johnsson, Oscar Fantenberg, Artturi Lehkonen, Carl Grundström, Jacob Larsson and Rasmus Dahlin win titles with Frölunda and all are now in the NHL. It seems the next player on that list is Samuel Fagemo, the Los Angeles Kings draft pick who, at 19, already has a CHL title under his belt and is already one of Frölunda’s offensive leaders. Waiting in the wings is 17-year-old Lucas Raymond, who’s played 18 SHL games and 6 CHL games with Frölunda this season.
And of course, at the helm is Roger Rönnberg, the two-time European Coach of the Year winner who has been Frölunda’s Head Coach since 2013. Even he is sometimes blown away by what his team can do.
“I’m so impressed with the character of my hockey team,” Rönnberg said after his team’s Semi-Final win – Frölunda’s third comeback in as many Playoff rounds. “I’m almost crying here because to have the team spirit to do it this way against Luleå is an amazing performance.”
Winning a fourth CHL title would be a milestone of sorts. It would make Frölunda just the second club to win more than three European titles. The all-time leader, CSKA Moscow, is in a class by itself, having won 20 titles between 1969 and 1990, the last 13 of them coming consecutively. Other teams to win three are Czech club Kometa Brno – or ZKL Brno as they were then called – who won the first three European Cups in 1966, 1967 and 1968. Russian club Metallurg Magnitogorsk won the European Hockey League in 1999 and 2000 and the European Champions Cup in 2008.