This season, an SHL team will go straight from the country's highest ice hockey series without qualifying against a team from the hockey allsvenskan.
Instead, teams 13 and 14 will, after the end of the regular season, meet in the best of seven matches and where the loser will be relegated.
Right now, Malmö is one of the teams facing an anxious qualifier.
Admittedly, more than half of the basic series remains (52 rounds), but the Scanians are firmly rooted as a jumbo.
Only taken 15 points
Malmö has taken only 15 points in 21 matches and the loss at home against Skellefteå was the team's sixth straight loss, of which five have come in regular time.
- We do it perfectly okay in the defensive game.
We probably thought a lot that it would be good, so we probably forgot that we would do something going forward, goalkeeper Oscar Alsenfelt tells C More.
The last time Malmö won in the SHL was on November 21 and then it was Skellefteå who was defeated on away ice (4-3).
The people of Skåne also won the meeting with the Västerbotten team at home (3-2).
It was also long even in the third meeting between the teams.
Until 13.05 in the second period, it was goalless, but then Andreas Wingerli put 1-0 to the away team in numerical superiority.
Just over three minutes later, 2-0 also came to Skellefteå when Toumas Kiiskinen intercepted a random puck in front of Oscar Alsenfelt in the home box.
Lindström's 400th point
In the third period, Malmö lifted something, but if Gustaf Lindvall did not act stably in the away goal, the home players missed in the decisive moments when the situations appeared.
In the final stage, coach Joakim Fagervall took out goalkeeper Alsenfelt, but the numerical superiority ended with Jesper Frödén putting 3-0 in an empty cage.
Joakim Lindström accounted for two assists and has now scored 400 points for Skellefteå, after 19 points in 18 matches.
Skellefteå is currently in a quarter-final place with its 37 points.