During the first eleven matches of the current year, he scored only once. Big things were expected from Vrána, who has been playing in the NHL for the last nine years, in Sweden, but the 29-year-old native of Prague’s Letňany struggled on the ice and the local experts called his game “lazy”.
In Växjö, the 2018 Stanley Cup winner showed he can still be a difference-maker. He opened the scoring in the 11th minute and after almost a month he finally got a goal.
“It’s been quite a long time since I last scored a goal,” nodded Vrána in an interview with Swedish TV4. “At the beginning of the season, I had a lot of chances to make it, but I didn’t succeed,” added the owner of the bronze medal from the 2022 WC.
And he also commented on Thursday, when he did not fit into the lineup for the duel in Örebro. “I won’t influence the composition of the lineup. But I try to do my best in every training session and work on improving my game. I can’t control everything, but what I can influence is to come every day with a good attitude and work hard. That’s all I can do,” Vrána said.
Back to the match in Växjö. After the first period, everything indicated that the visitors would end the streak of six consecutive losses. After all, in the opening 20 minutes, Linköping played a concert, winning it 17:1(!) on shots and having a two-goal lead to their credit.
“The first period was probably the worst I’ve experienced here at the Vida Arena (Växjö stadium). A disaster,” the home team’s assistant captain Dennis Rasmussen shook his head.
When Vrána made it 3-1 in the 35th minute with his second goal of the match, it seemed that Linköping would leave the last fourteenth place in the table.
But in the final 20 minutes came a rarely seen collapse. The guests were completely overwhelmed and Växjö turned the game around with four goals to a final score of 5:3.
“I feel an incredible emptiness. We had the victory in our hands, but we went out on the ice (in the third period) and became cowards,” coach Mikael Håkanson criticized his team.
During the international break, he will have plenty of work to lift the impoverished Manchester United. And maybe it’s a bit of a shame for Vrána that now a 12-day break is coming, when he finally got a goal in Växjö…
