They trailed by a goal after 40 minutes, but Oceláři Třinec scored three times in the third period to win the home leg of their Quarterfinal over Brynäs IF 3-1.

Buoyed by their energetic home fans and an early power play, Třinec stormed out of the gate, firing nine shots at Linus Ferström before Brynäs managed to test Šimon Hrubec at the other end. Thanks to a power play of their own, however, Brynäs came back with a mighty push in the last half of the period, and would have opened the scoring if not for two spectacular saves by Hrubec – first off Aaron Palushaje, with Kevin Clark unable to put in the rebound, and then off Jacob Blomqvist, who tried to flip the puck over the fallen goalie but Hrubec got his arm on it to knock it away.

Both goalies continued to shine in the second period. with the teams trading brilliant chances in the middle of the frame, and then on a Brynäs breakaway, Alexander Bjurström fired high. Finally, with 5:12 to go in the middle frame, Andrew Miller opened the scoring for Brynäs, taking a pass and shooting from a sharp angle off the arm of Hrubec and in.

Třinec were down, but Brynäs took two penalties in the last minute of the second period, and that turned out to be huge. With a 5-on-3 advantage, Daniel Rakoš scored just 25 seconds into the third, taking a pass from Tomáš Marcinko down low and firing home a one-timer over Fernström’s glove.

Then just 3:20 later, the home team took the lead on Martin Adamsky’s slapper from the top of the circle through a crowd. Then with less than eight minutes to play, they opened up a two-goal advantage when Aron Chmielewski took a pass in front and backhanded it past Fernström from in close.

Brynäs got a late power play and a chance to at least get within a goal heading into their home leg but were unable to get any really good scoring chances in the final minutes, meaning that Třinec take a two-goal lead into Sweden next week.