Dam Good: Dominique Rüegg completes hat trick in OT against Göteborg

After a weeklong break to allow for some international competition the SDHL returned to action on Friday. As if on cue, the weekend featured tons of entertaining outcomes to make up for the brief hiatus, including a few upsets and some tight games. And who would have thought one of the weekend’s best games would turn out to be a battle between the teams with the two worst records in the SDHL?

On Saturday, Swiss forward Dominique Rüegg clinched a 4-3 win for Leksand and completed her hat trick just 38 seconds into overtime against Göteborg. Yes, you read that right, Göteborg lost yet another close game. They remain winless through 16 games this season and now have a devastating -64 goal differential.

Rüegg’s heroics weren’t limited to the game-winner in sudden death. She also tied the game at 3-3 with just 3:42 left in regulation and opened the scoring for Leksand late in the first period on the power play. Scoring three of Leksand’s four goals in a come-from-behind win over the league’s last-place team earned her our spotlight in Dam Good this week, even though Leksand were thoroughly dismantled by HV71 on Sunday.

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Dam Good: Bad blood boils over between MODO and Leksand

With her hat trick, Rüegg now has nine points — eight of which are goals — in 13 games for Leksand in her first year of SDHL action. One has to imagine that she’d be a more productive player on a team with more talent, but the fact that she’s scored eight of her team’s 29 goals speaks to just how much skill she has. She leads Leksand in goals, game-winning goals, +/-, and is second in shots and points despite missing two games.

Three Crowns

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

• SDE had a huge weekend thanks in part to two big games from defender Kayleigh Hamers. Hamers had a goal and two primary assists in SDE’s 5-2 win over a shorthanded Luleå on Friday and scored her first power-play goal of the season on Saturday in her team’s 5-3 victory over MODO. Hamers is the only defender in the SDHL who leads her team in scoring. She has four goals and nine assists in 16 games this year.
• Sanni Hakala scored a hat trick in her first game of the 2020-21 season for HV71 in a 6-1 upset over Brynäs on Saturday. Now that, my friends, is how you make an entrance. Hakala didn’t dress for HV71’s Sunday win over Leksand.
• Stop me if you’ve heard this one before — Kennedy Marchment had a monster weekend for HV71. She picked up a goal and notched four assists on Saturday against Brynäs. She followed that performance by scoring a goal and adding four more assists against Leksand on Sunday. That’s back-to-back five point games for Marchment who now has 13 goals and 24 assists in 15 games and leads the SDHL in scoring with 37 points./