HV71 had a famous team in 2020 and won the first SM final against Luleå before the pandemic crushed the golden chances when the final game was cancelled.

Since then, the team has lost a lot of players and now HV71 is last in the table with only twelve points in 24 games.

Tomorrow they face second-placed AIK, who are three points ahead and on safe ground.

"Direct decisive match"

- This is a directly decisive match for us if we are to hang on and play all the way to the end or if we are to prepare for the qualifiers.

That is the reality, we have to talk about it, says coach Peter Hammarström.

Earlier this week, the team collapsed when 0-0 turned into a 5-0 deficit in ten minutes in the second period against SDE.

Hammarström was very frustrated after the 8-2 loss.

- That any player can make a mistake, absolutely, we work with people and everyone makes mistakes sometimes.

But that everyone makes mistakes at the same time during a 15-minute period, I have not experienced that.

A collective collapse.

Relies on young players

The club relies heavily on young Swedish talents such as Mira Jungåker, Jenna Raunio and Hilda Svensson who were key players in the JVM team that just won silver.

Hammarström believes that they certainly have several of the country's best talents, but that they have been forced to rely on them far too much due to a thin squad.

- They have done fantastically but they are young and their performance fluctuates and they should be allowed to have such fluctuations in their game.

It is others who must be responsible for stability and quality so that we do not end up in that situation.

Peter Hammarström is now calling for more desperation from the players and believes that the management stressed the seriousness of the situation.

- It has become very clear from our side what can wait and with that I expect you to play more desperately, almost fight for your survival.

We didn't feel that last time.

CLIP: Ronja Savolainen on Luleå's suspension - no games for three weeks (January 24):

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Ronja Savolainen on Luleå's long layoff: "Training hard" Photo: Bildbyrån.