CAPTION CORRECTION! Hockey extra league playoff final – 5th match: Mountfield Hradec Králové – HC Oceláři Třinec, April 26, 2023, Hradec Králové. From left, Bohumil Jank from Hradec Králové, Aron Chmielewski from Třinec, Jan Eberle from Hradec Králové and Radek Pilař from Hradec Králové.
Hradec Králové – The hockey players of Třinec did not use the second match point in the extra league playoff final against Hradec Králové, and after losing 0:3 in the fifth game, they are now only 3:2 ahead of the games. According to striker Andrej Nestrašila, nothing is happening, the Steelers were well aware of the opponent's strength before the series and expected balanced battles.
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“We were leading 3:0, but it didn't have to be that way. We won in extra time in Hradec. They have a very good team and if someone had told us before the series that we would lead 3:2 and play the sixth game at home, then we will definitely take it,” Nestrasil told journalists.
“It seems to me that the surrounding area underestimates Hradec a lot. That if we beat Sparta and Pardubice, then this should be something simple. We know that they are an excellent team and they are not in the final by chance,” said the thirty-two-year-old player. “It was not for nothing that they won so many games at the end of the regular season and then eliminated Liberec and the other Vítkovice in the playoffs,” said Nestrašil.
Třinec certainly did not lose concentration after three wins. “We can't think about what happened. That it was 3-0. It's 3-2 and we still have match point and we're playing at home. That's how we look at it,” he said.
Today on the ice in Hradec Kralove, the Steelers conceded after only 27 seconds, which, according to Nestrašil, was not a problem. “The home side got a little carried away, but it wasn't something that decided the match. There were still 59 minutes and 30 seconds left. But of course it was unpleasant,” said the Slavia Prague player.
The guests got the second goal after Karlis Čukste's hesitation on the offensive blue line, after which the East Bohemians got into a two-on-one outnumbering and Radek Pilař luckily scored. “That's how it is sometimes. In the first or second game, the puck bounced off us and Marko (Daňo) and Vožuch (Daniel Voženílek) went two on one and scored a goal. Today it was the opposite,” said Nestrašil.
V home environment, according to the representative striker, Třinec must return to the game from the beginning of the series. “We have to play differently than we played the last two games. Responsibly, win fights, good defense. Maybe we didn't go in front of the goal as much, that's also one of the things we have to do better,” Nestrasil said.
He didn't make much of the fact that the Steelers didn't score today. “We are mature players, we have something behind us. If we were to screw ourselves up by not scoring a goal, we have nothing to do in the final,” Nestrašil added.
