Sparta wins Presidents' Trophy, Nedvěd scoring title

Eurohockey.com's Petr Polák reviewed the final day of the Czech Extraliga regular season, Sunday. There was no suspense as to which team would finish first overall and win the Presidents' Trophy, but the two-horse scoring race went right down to the wire. 

The history of the Presidents' Trophy in the Czech Extraliga is short. It was established in 2009-10 and the first team awarded the trophy was Plzeň 1929. One year later it was Oceláři Třinec who grabbed it; the team which also got the cup for the playoff champion. This season, the award goes to Sparta Praha. Sparta demonstrated the best regular season record (27-8-10-7) and finished in first place with 107 points, 8 ahead of second-place Plzeň.

Jan Beneš, hcsparta.cz

Sparta Praha 2 - Slavia Praha 3 (SO)

It should have been a big-style celebration for Sparta. Although they knew they couldn't lose their hold on first place, they still wanted to lift the Presidents' Trophy after a victory over their biggest rival, Slavia. But although Sparta was in the lead until the 58th minute, Slavia tied the score and won the game in the shootout.

Brno 4 - Zlín 1

Zlín owned the chance to grab the last direct ticket to the quarterfinals in its hands before the game in Brno. Zlín would have finished no worse than sixth if the team earned any point. But if you give up two shorthanded goals during the first ten minutes of play, your chances of victory are much slimmer. With the victory, Brno earned eighth place and will start the preliminary round in their home arena. Zlín finishes seventh and has to fight for the quarterfinals in the best-of-five preliminary round.

Vítkovice 5 - Třinec 3

With Brno's victory over Zlín, Vítkovice earned an opportunity to advance to the quarterfinals directly instead of Zlín, but they had to defeat Třinec. After only 23 seconds of play, the first shot of the game ended up in Třinec's net. By the sixth minute it was 2-0, and the home fans started to think about an easy game. But Třinec made it 2-1 within 30 seconds and tied the score at three in the second period. The tie-breaking goal in this thriller came eleven minutes before the last horn from the stick of 39-year-old veteran Viktor Ujčík,  and then in the last minute Jiří Burger scored an empty-net goal to make it 5-3.

České Budějovice 2 - Kladno 1

Because Zlín lost the game in Brno, Kladno had a chance for a direct advancement to the quarterfinals as well as Vítkovice, but only if they won and Vítkovice lost to Třinec. Kladno blew a 1-0 third period lead and lost 2-1, thereby not having to watch the result of Vítkovice. With their fate alread decided before Sunday’s victory, České Budějovice goes to the quarterfinals directly. Kladno will fight in the preliminary round.

Pardubice 8 - Litvínov 2

Pardubice said goodbye to the regular season with a huge victory over Litvínov. Jan Kolář scored 4 points (3+1) and was the biggest star of the day. Pardubice climbed to third place and will play against Vítkovice in the quarterfinals, while Litvínov goes to the playout.

KarlovyVary 4 - Mladá Boleslav 2

This was the only game of the round in which neither team had a chance to make the playoffs. Both Karlovy Vary and Mladá Boleslav will participate in the playout and, because of that, this was a very important result in terms of the relegation round. The relegation round against the 1.liga winner will be played by the worst team in the league standings after the playout. At the moment, Mladá Boleslav is in that position.

Liberec 5 - Plzeň 3

Both teams, Liberec and Plzeň, knew where they would finish, so the most interesting question of the game was who would earn the trophy for winning the 2011-12 league scoring title. Would it be Petr Nedvěd of Liberec or Radek Duda of Plzeň? Both Nedvěd and Duda recorded one point, so the 2011-12 scoring champion of the Czech Extraliga regular season is Nedvěd with 61 points (24+37). Duda finished second with 59 (24+35).

Scoring champion Petr Nedvěd (top left) celebrates the win over Plzeň with his teammates.
Photo: Bořivoj Černý/FOTOFAK.

Final Standings  

#	Club	G	W	OW	OL	L	GF:GA	Pts
1	HC Sparta Praha	52	27	8	10	7	163:109	107
2	HC Plzeň 1929	52	26	7	7	12	181:146	99
3	HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice	52	23	5	7	17	175:136	86
4	Bílí Tygři Liberec	52	19	11	5	17	145:140	84
5	HC Mountfield České Budějovice	52	23	5	4	20	129:127	83
6	HC Vítkovice Steel	52	20	7	3	22	143:150	77
7	PSG Zlín	52	18	6	10	18	107:125	76
8	HC Kometa Brno	52	19	6	6	21	142:137	75
9	Rytiři Kladno	52	19	5	7	21	129:140	74
10	HC Oceláři Třinec	52	19	4	8	21	146:143	73
11	HC Energie Karlovy Vary	52	17	5	6	24	137:154	67
12	HC Slavia Praha	52	15	7	7	23	140:158	66
13	HC Verva Litvínov	52	14	9	4	25	138:171	64
14	BK Mladá Boleslav	52	16	4	5	27	120:159	61

Note: The top six teams advance directly to the quarterfinals, while teams 7 through 10 play off for the other two quarterfinal berths.

Scoring Leaders 
     

#	Player	Pos	Team	GP	G	A	P	PIM	+/-
1.	Petr Nedvěd	F	Bílí Tygři Liberec	48	24	36	60	61	8
2.	Radek Duda	RW	HC Plzeň 1929	51	24	34	58	84	19
3.	Petr Ton	RW	HC Sparta Praha	51	25	31	56	22	22
4.	Jiří Burger	C	HC Vítkovice Steel	50	21	32	53	37	5
5.	Jan Kovář	F	HC Plzeň 1929	51	17	32	49	50	15
6.	Petr Koukal	F	HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice	50	17	31	48	46	13
7.	Jan Kolář	F	HC ČSOB Pojišťovna Pardubice	51	23	24	47	32	21
8.	Petr Tenkrát	RW	HC Sparta Praha	51	22	25	47	32	2
9.	Viktor Hübl	C	HC Verva Litvínov	48	20	27	47	52	8
10.	Martin Straka	C	HC Plzeň 1929	51	17	30	47	20	9
Show all stats for season 2011-12 Statistics courtesy Eurohockey.com.