Storhamar’s Alex Reichenberg put in an incredible goal in a Champions Hockey League match on Thursday, in what would become a 5-1 win for the Norwegian team over Switzerland’s Geneve-Servette.
Reichenberg takes a pass from the boards on a zone entry that bounces up to shoulder height behind him. He bats it out of the air while the puck is behind him and he’s moving in a different direction than the puck, then takes a slapshot off the bounce, beating Geneve-Servette’s 19-year-old goaltender Gauthier Descloux.
Watch the incredible goal below.
Reichenberg was named Storhamar’s player of the game, finishing the night with a pair of goals and four shots.
With that win Storhamar wins Group M coming out of the group stage (they beat Geneve-Servette two days in a row) and becomes the second Norwegian team to step out of the group round. That’s particularly impressive because the Storhamar Hamar and Stavanger Oilers are the only two representatives of the Norwegian Ligaen in the CHL. Six of the 12 leagues have only one or two representative teams. Of those six leagues’ representatives only three teams are set to move out of the group stage, the two Norwegian teams and the Slovakian club HC Kosice out of the Slovakian Extraliga. The other six leagues — the NLA, SHL, DEL, Finnish Extraliiga, EBEL and Czech Extraliga — have from four to eight representative teams each.
Sparta Prague and Geneve-Servette, who will still be without former Minnesota Wild forward Cody Almond, will face off on Saturday to determine who the second team coming out of Group M will be.