The drama to end the SSL

The schedule makers of the SSL knew their stuff, when designing the last round. The four last placed teams facing each other in pairs made for a thrilling end to the season.

Below I have listed the conditions going into the last round for the teams still fighting to stay in SSL, removing all unrealistical wins by huge margains.

11) Warberg - already practically a SSL team for 25/26, since they were up three points and 30+ goals on AIK.

12) Dalen - knowing that at least an overtime win would seal the deal.

13) AIK - in need of at least two more points than Dalen in the last round.

With this in the backpack, let us go and have a look at how the game between Warberg and Dalen played out, focusing of the approach of the team in most need of points – Dalen. We will also look at the concept of upgrading scoring chances, and what it means.

All videos in the post are from SportExpressen.

Dalen are not strangers to drama in the last round of the SSL, losing to already relegated Gävle in the 22/23 season, to end up getting relegated themselves.

They started this game on two lines, with an obvious approach of trying to get their top line (Åkerlund-Hedlund-Kronberg, Ljunggren-Edholm) on court as much as possible in offensive situations. Put a pin in the name of Edholm for now, we will get back to his usage in the video below. Dalen borrowed a trick from handball, that is something we rarely see in floorball.

The other line (Forslund-Vihtari Hansson-Wiklund, Ahlbäck-Nording) got a lot of starts without the ball and rather defensive tasks.

The decision of starting on two lines of course sends signals about the importance of the game for Dalen, but it also kind of kills the chance of going for a very high-event approach, since it will be very tough on the players to try to play a back-and-forth type of game with lots of transition situations in both directions.

By now you all of course know the results of the last round. Warberg beat Dalen in regulation, and AIK beat FC Helsingborg in overtime, sending Dalen down to Allsvenskan and AIK hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

So let us do what we always do here. We look at a mixture of numbers and eyetest takeaways from the Dalen-Warberg game. And we try to learn along the ride.

Looking at the five-on-five numbers from this game, the biggest story to me, is the lack of high and mid-high danger scoring chances. Especially for the team really needing a win in this game – Dalen. An entire game with just four high-danger chances in total for both teams is almost unheard of. This was a very slow game in terms of major scoring chances.

A big thing for me since the semi-final for me with Switzerland against Sweden in the WFC 2020 (played 2021 because of Corona) in Helsinki, has been upgrading scoring chances – meaning turning lower ones into better quality chances. We played a great game with Switzerland against an on paper superior Swedish team, and by almost all metrics were deserving a win in that game. However, we felt we did not create enough big scoring chances to tilt the court enough to our advantage, to actually start winning games of that caliber on a regular basis. We started working actively on ways to upgrade scoring chances to higher danger, and trying to figure out when the upgrade is worth the cost of for an example an extra pass.

In this game with such a lack of big scoring chances, I think exactly this should have been the key to winning it for Dalen. Here are my thoughts on the subject in video form.

There are also some side stories to mention. The difference between Corsi (all shot attempts) being for Dalen and Fenwick (unblocked shot attempts) being in favour of Warberg is pretty revealing. Warberg blocked a lot of shots in this game. Just have a look at the clips below.

There is also a pretty big difference between the expected goals and the actual goals of the game. This has to do with the way the goals were scored. A lot of the goals came from shots from low-danger positions. Which is kind of obvious, since the game actually consisted of nine five-on-five goals but had very few high and mid-high scoring chances.

Let us have a look at how the two Dalen lines performed, looking at exactly that – high and mid-high danger scoring chances.

Let me start by saying that I really appreciate to look at the Hedlund line while they are on the court. Alexander Hedlund has had a really good season for Dalen. He does it all, playmaking and scoring. And can be used in almost all situations. He is excellent on the powerplay and is scoring on almost a two points per game pace this year.

Åkerlund is a good sniper scoring almost a goal per game, and Kronberg needs no explanation after his fantastic carreer. He might not move the needle as much any more, but is a great presence on the court. Edholm and Ljunggren are by no means complete floorball players, but both have specific offensive talents that can be lethal when used correctly.

Knowing all that, the results for this line in this game is nothing but disappointing. They are also outscored 2-1 in actual goals in the game. Though they should also get credit for another half goal, since Dalen scores one when they are changing and half of the line is still on the court.

They play more than half of the game, and still end up with only one high danger scoring chance, and four mid-high chances.

If your brain already did the maths comparing the overall numbers with the numbers for the Hedlund line, you already know how it will look for the Vihtari Hansson line. Nothing much in terms of high-danger really happening. And remember that Dalen played on two lines. Except for some special teams minutes, this line was on the court for almost 50% of the game time. And did not register a single high danger chance for or against.

In actual goals they got outscored 3-2, but they should of course also get credit for half of the goal I mentioned above – while Dalen were changing lines. And since the number of actual goals actually exceed the high and mid-high scoring chances, you probably already know that a lot of the scoring in this game came off of low danger stuff.

Now we know what the numbers said. But how did this happen in real life? What are the floorball explanations and takeaways? Let us have a look at the heart of this analysis.

Takeaways for you as a floorball coach in your team

• Think about the pros and cons of starting a game with two lines. You will get your best players more frequently onto the court, but there is less possibilities to play a high-event type of game with a lot of pressing and/or transition.
• Upgrading scoring chances might be an interesting concept for you as a coach, depending on how you look at the game. The idea is to keep looking for a better scoring chance, instead of settling for an ok scoring chance.

Thanks for your time!

/David