Niklas Wikegård has seen Frölunda’s way of playing ice hockey.
Now Roger Rönnberg strikes back – with force.
– It is very, very badly undermined, he says.
Frölunda comes from a season that ended in the SC semi-final, but even though it may have been approved on paper, the season was marred by criticism. Roger Rönnberg didn’t quite get it 100 percent right, and the critics thought it might be time for Rönnberg to review how his team plays its hockey.
Strikes back against Wikegård
Rönnberg has been clear that he wants his team to play with a high pressure, and that is nothing he plans to change. But Niklas Wikegård, long-time expert at C More, thinks, to say the least, that it’s time.
– Roger Rönnberg’s way of playing hockey is outdated – and nothing you win titles with anymore, he has said.
But it is nothing that Rönnberg buys. In an interview with GP, the Frölunda coach now hits back properly – and has just one example in mind.
– I find it poorly undermined! Very, very badly undermined with what reality looks like. I was happy that the Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup with an almost identical playing system to the one we play with, he says.
“I do not believe that!”
Roger Rönnberg also gives a small boot to SVT expert Jonas Andersson.
– I just heard Jonas Andersson talking on TV about Brynäs playing smart – because they back home, play a concerted defensive game. In Sweden, we talk about it being smart. There are a lot of explanations for why people think that way, because it is in the Swedish culture that this is how you play team sports. You rally and play a low defense game. But I don’t believe it! In the last 15 years, I have not seen a team that increases the probability of winning matches in that way, he says.
Roger Rönnberg also believes that the teams that win the titles play in a similar way as his Frölunda do.
– I don’t see any club teams winning with that style of play. Teams like Luleå and Färjestad, who played in the final this spring, play with a fairly high forechecking, Rögle, who won the CHL, plays in the same way. Växjö forechecks. So it’s quite tiring that journalists don’t find out what the reality is like.
The SHL begins on Saturday, when Frölunda meets Timrå on home ice.
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