For two winners: Who will win the match point after the carving in Pardubice?

For two winners: Who will win the match point after the carving in Pardubice? | Hokej.cz

Daniel Voženílek and Ondřej Vála. | Photo: Michal Dědič

Looking at the course of the finals, we can say: the series is now played for two winning games. Both Richard Král and Vojtěch Polák agreed for Hokej.cz that the fifth match of the finals will significantly reveal the winner of the championship cup for 2024. Will Dynamo or the Steelers take it? You can watch the match on O2 TV Sport or in Hokej.cz text broadcasts.

The fifth match of the final of the Tipsport extra league

18:00 HC Dynamo Pardubice – HC Ocelarí Třinec (O2 TV Sport)
Series status: 2:2

The Steelers took the lead twice in the series, Pardubice always took the lead in the return, and the situation is thus equal after four duels. While the reigning champions won 2:1 and 4:3 in the odd matches, they lost 3:6, 2:6 in the even matches.

“Even if we get ten goals, it doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t really matter how many goals you get in the playoffs, it’s about winning,” defender Adam Polášek reports. Pardubice scored two goals into an empty net, but the match was mainly decided in their zone.

The Steelers were reaching for their third win and had a lot of opportunities to win the match in power plays. Even fourteen minutes in numerical advantage did not lead to a goal. “The puck was flying well there, only the final pass and the final shot… We had a lot of them, and by the end it was such a pain. We all pushed it there, but we lacked lightness,” said Polášek.

“There were two more sticks in the second period… The series is tied 2:2, nothing is happening. Pardubice played a little better on Saturday, we played a little better on Sunday and the results are the opposite. That’s hockey,” added David Cienciala.

The Steelers started the last extra-league week already on Tuesday afternoon, when they traveled to Pardubice by train. Last season, they won three out of four semi-final duels on the ice there, and in the current one they also managed to defeat Pardubice at home.

In the five-on-five game, however, Pardubice was better in all duels of the final except for the first game. “The matches are very different. Either we play our hockey and hold on to it, or there are matches that let us down due to some mistake, or in the power play. But we go on. It’s a final that entertains the audience,” defender Polášek describes.

And news from the other camp? There, after the win, Marko Zadina’s ascent towards Milan Antoš was mainly dealt with. Thanks to this, do the hockey players at Dynamo have peace of mind at work? Or will the media pressure intensify?

“We have to fight, put our hearts on the ice and just fight it out. It will be nothing but a fight,” Peter Čerešňák looks forward to the fifth match.

“Třinec has fantastic power plays, we had a lot of eliminations for my taste, double weakening three on five… Willda picked it up great, just like all of us who play weakened, we played it great. But we have to be careful, we can’t give the opponent so many chances to overpower,” he realizes. “We will look at the video, learn from the mistakes and we will want to succeed again today,” he concluded.

But the sword ball will go to only one group of hockey warriors. Who will go to Friday’s duel in Silesia with a chance to win the shiny TG Masaryk cup?