Dam Good: Lara Stalder explodes for 7 points against SDE

Lara Stalder absolutely went off against SDE on Saturday to lead Brynäs to an 8-2 victory. She piled up seven points — yes, seven - in the rout and finished the weekend with a total of nine points. The Swiss star is now averaging 2.47 Pts/GP in this her fourth season of play in the SDHL.

Stalder started her weekend with a goal (16) and an assist on Friday against AIK before pouring it on SDE. She had a three-assist first period, with two primary assists  — all earned at even strength. Stalder took it easy in the second, earning just a single assist on Katerina Mrázová’s second goal of the game before scoring Brynäs’ sixth and eighth goals of the game and setting up the seventh. Mrázová wasn’t too bad herself, finishing with six points (two goals, four assists) against SDE on the heels of a two-assist game at the expense of AIK.

Amazingly, all seven of Stalder’s points against SDE were scored at even strength. She was a machine and Lindsey Post and the SDE defense just couldn’t stop her from doing her thing.

As a result of her nine-point masterpiece this weekend, Stalder soared into first place in the SDHL’s scoring race. She now has 20 goals and 32 assists in 21 games. As if those numbers weren’t impressive enough on their own, only one of Stalder’s 20 goals and three of her 32 assists were picked up at power play. The duo of Stalder and Mrázová is, hands down, the most dangerous duo at even strength in the SDHL and in all of pro hockey.

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Last week’s Dam Good

Stalder’s production at evens is absolutely amazing, but it also highlights a weakness of Brynäs. A team that has that much talent should not have the third-worst power play in the league but that is where they find themselves at 15.49 percent. It’s also important to note that they are third-from-last in the league in power play opportunities (71).

Three Crowns

Here are three performances worthy of hardware from the last week of SDHL action.

• Sabina Küller had a hat trick against Leksand and goaltender Eveliina Suonpää on Saturday to secure a big 4-2 win for AIK. Entering Saturday’s game, Küller had just one goal in her first  19 games of the year. It’s been a rough year for Küller, who finished the 2019-20 season with 18 points (12 goals) in 32 games. Hopefully for AIK, her hat trick against Leksand will spark her offense. /
• Veteran defender Johanna Olofsson had an assist in Luleå’s 5-2 win over Djurgården on Saturday and picked up three more assists — all on the power play — on Sunday against Linköping. With her three-assist performance on Sunday, Olofsson, 29, set a new career high for assists in a single season (14) and now has 16 points in 22 games. This is Olofsson’s first season with Luleå. She played for Brynäs last season after spending 12 seasons with MODO.
• It was a big week for Djurgården’s Andrea Dalen. She scored two goals against MODO — one of which was an empty-netter on Sunday in a 3-0 win on the heels of scoring the overtime winner against SDE on Wednesday. She and Josefine Jakobsen are the only players on Djurgården with 10 or more goals this year and Dalen leads the way with 12 after her three-goal week./