Djurgården is down in a slump and has lined up four losses. After a good first period against Rögle, the Stockholmers collapsed at the beginning of the second period and already after 22 seconds, Adam Tambellini was able to score 1-0.
– In the second period, we came out in a four-on-four situation before we would have a powerplay. It turned the match around. We made a mistake and they got two against one (1-0), a counterattack and a penalty (2-0), so we helped them with all the goals they got, says Djurgården’s coach Barry Smith after the 4-1 loss.
After Djurgårdsslarv, the hill Marcus Högström stretched out one leg and it fell Rögle forward Dennis Everberg, who got a penalty kick and he scored it to 2-0.
– I just thought it was two players who went together. It was not an intentional arrest or anything and I would not call it punishment, but that was my team. That was a big goal. A match-winning goal, right? says Barry Smith.
Dennis Everberg has a different opinion on the situation.
– I get knocked off his foot. There’s really nothing to talk about, says Everberg.
– He (Högström) lies and spreads on the ice and drops me. This is not really strange. It’s clear.
Dennis Everberg took care of the penalty himself and scored his third goal of the season with a backhand high behind Djurgårds goalkeeper Mantas Armalis.
– I made him freeze a bit and got it up over him, says Everberg.
He really wanted to impose that penalty.
– If you get the chance, you want to take it. There were no oddities.
READ MORE: Oak: Djurgården is starting to run out of time – the losses at Hovet are stinging
Everberg just needed to get a confirmation from Rögle coach Cam Abbott.
– We had some eye contact. Had Cam wanted someone else, it would have been okay for me. If you get the chance, you want to take it.
Djurgården now has four straight losses.
– We tried to come back in the third period and play with three units and get more energy, but we could not get to the goal. That was the match, says Barry Smith.
– You do not win all matches in hockey and you do not want to lose more than two in a row. We had a few matches where we could have won, also the Leksand match was 1-1 after two periods and we played very well in Växjö and got no points. Tonight we gave away the match in the second period.
Coaches Cam Abbott, Rögle, and Barry Smith, Djurgården, at the press conference at Hovet. Photo: Mattias Ek / HockeyNews.se.
He does not agree that there should be a crisis in Djurgården.
– The crisis we have is that we have to win a match. And it’s a long season.
Djurgården has ended up in recurring setbacks in the matches.
What does it depend on?
– If I could find an answer, I would fix it. It’s either that we do not have the self-confidence, that we are a little fragile, so when we let in one goal, the next comes too.
Does it have to do with the game system?
– Hockey is hockey so it’s not about the system, really. We have made the team skate more in the middle zone and have gone back to how the team normally plays.
This means more and straighter forechecking than at the beginning of the season.
