South Korean club Anyang Halla will begin its quest for its third Asian hockey championship on the weekend against their Russian rival.
Anyang Halla will host Sakhalin in Game 1 of the 2015-2016 Asia League Ice Hockey (ALIH) finals at 5 p.m. Saturday at Anyang Ice Arena in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province. Games 2 and 3 of the best-of-five series will also take place in Anyang, on Sunday and next Tuesday.
Anyang swept the Tohoku Free Blades in three straight games in the semifinals last week to reach their second straight finals, and outscored their opponents 15-2.
In last year’s finals, Anyang got swept by Tohoku. The South Korean team’s last ALIH title came in 2011. That year, Anyang and Tohoku reached the finals, but they were canceled due to the earthquake in the Tohoku region, forcing the two clubs to share the championship.
Anyang finished first in the regular season with a league-record 114 points. Sakhalin ended in second place to Anyang in the regular season at just one point behind.
In the semifinals, Sakhalin swept the Nippon Paper Cranes on a combined score of 14-2. This marks the first time in the league’s 13-year history that no Japanese club reached the finals.
Anyang and Sakhalin each scored 206 goals in the regular season, but Anyang gave up a league-low 86 goals, while Sakhalin finished a distant second in that category with 111 goals.
They split their regular season meetings. Anyang had two regulation wins and one shootout win, but also had one overtime loss and two regulation losses.
In those six games, Anyang scored 14 goals and allowed 12.
In the playoffs, Shin Sang-woo and Cho Min-ho have three goals each to lead Anyang. Ruslan Bernikov leads all Sakhalin scorers with four goals. He and Alexey Eremin are tied for the league lead with seven playoff points.
The key for Anyang will be to maintain their efforts through all three periods. In the clinching Game 3 against Tohoku, Anyang dominated the first period with strong forechecking and left their opponents flustered deep in their own zone. Anyang maintained their superiority in puck possession in the second and built a 2-0 lead.
Tohoku fought back in the final frame and pushed around Anyang players with abandon. The South Korean club was lucky to leave with a 4-0 victory, as they scored two late empty-net goals, and goalie Matt Dalton stood on his head for his first shutout of the series.
The first three games of the finals will take place at Anyang.
If the series goes beyond three games, then the last two games will be held at Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in Sakhalin on April 2 and 3. (Yonhap)
