Stavanger Oilers 4–1 Ocelari Trinec
After each team won in the other team's rink last season, the Stavanger Oilers opened this year's CHL campaign with a home-ice win over Ocelari Trinec. Christian Dahl-Andersen, Josh Soares and Rudolf Balcers staked the Oilers to the 3–0 lead before Erik Hrna got Trinec on the board in the last minute of the second period. The visitors fired 28 shots at Erik Holm in the third period alone – 51 in the game – but couldn't come any closer and Jonas Johansen put the game away into the empty net with 3:39 to play.
SonderjyskE Vojens 4–1 Red Bull Salzburg
The Danish champions provided a mild upset on the first night of CHL action, beating the Austrian champs 4–1 in Vojens in an inspired effort less than a week after the passing of general manager Soren Stockfisch. Mads Bodker at even strength, Mads Lund on the power play and Cory Quirk shorthanded paced SonderjyskE to a 3–0 lead on home ice before Thomas Raffl got one for Salzburg midway through the third period. That was the only shot to beat Joni Myllykoski, however, and an empty-netter rounded out the scoring."This has been a really emotional week for all of us," SonderjyskE coach Dan Ceman said afterward. "It was hard to know what to expect from our guys tonight. I would not have been upset if they were mentally drained. But I think the memory of Soren was in everybody's mind tonight. It was an extra reason for all the guys to give everything and pay Soren a tribute and give him this honour."
HC Kosice 2–4 Red Bull Munich
German national team captain Michael Wolf staked his team out to a 3–0 lead after 27 minutes with the CHL's second natural hat-trick of the day, then held on to beat host Kosice 4–2. Jason Jaffray assisted on his first two. Jeremy Dehner made it 4–0 shortly thereafter, but Jiri Bicek scored a pair for the home team to make the final score more respectable.“It was a tough game against a strong opponent, we are happy that we won,” Wolf said after his big day. “We had many scoring chances, won the game and we want to repeat it the next game on Sunday. A guy doesn't score three goals every day, so it makes me happy and I helped our team. That's what's most important.”
Kosice's big scorer Bicek said, “The first period wasn't so good from our side. Then we talked to each other about what we had to do out there and it was better starting in the second. Also both my linemates played a great game. We found some mistakes and scored two goals. It's just too bad that it was too late.”
TPS Turku 6–1 Black Wings Linz
Lauri Tukonen scored three goals in the first 25 minutes, all assisted by Tomi Kallio, as TPS Turku are the first team to win in the new Champions Hockey League season. Jerry Ahtola, Harri Tikkanen and Ilkka Pikkarainen also scored, while Rob Hisey broke Teemu Lassila's shutout with less than seven minutes to go."I'm proud of our team. We were well-prepared and got off to a good start. We have been together only two or three weeks and it's important to start like this at home. And of course our first line was strong," TPS head coach Ari-Pekka Selin said of the line of Tadas Kumeliauskas, Tukonen and Kallio.
"They were a lot better than we were tonight, no question about that," understated Linz head coach Robert Daum. "They were quick to the pucks, and a much better team. Overall, we looked like we've been together for two weeks. We've had a lot of changes and it takes time to put things into place."
Vaxjo Lakers 10–2 Braehead Clan
The Swedish champion Vaxjo Lakers reached double digits on opening night, having no trouble with their visitors from Scotland, taking care of business early with five goals in the first period. Patrik Lundh led the way with an incredible 6-point performance (2+4), while Joakim Hildling had 4 points (1+3) and Ilkka Heikkinen 3 (2+1). Stefan Meyer scored both goals for Braehead."We let them overwhelm us a bit with their speed and got caught watching," said Braehead coach Ryan Finnerty. "I didn't think we created enough, and when we did have puck possession we gave it away to easily. We will learn from this and move forward to be a better team, and get better every day. We had great travelling support tonight."
Frolunda Gothenburg 9–1 Sheffield Steelers
It was more bad news for Britain, as Sheffield lost by the same eight-goal margin to Frolunda in western Sweden. It was actuallly only 2–0 after 40 minutes, but then the Gothenburg club ran away with the game in the third. The power play was where Frolunda really took over, scoring five times with the man advantage including once up two men. Henrik Tommernis recorded the day's third hat-trick, while Spencer Abbott had 3 assists. Colton Fretter scored the lone Sheffield goal on a penalty shot."We talked about our discipline, and it wasn't good enough today," Sheffield coach Paul Thompson assessed. "We started to die off in the last period. For two periods we battled hard, but we hung our goalie out to dry and I'm not very happy about it. I think it's a big lesson for everyone in our locker room – you didn't see Frolunda taking penalties today, and it's a big eye-opener for my locker room now. We will get better with our conditioning."
Djurgarden Stockholm 2–4 Tappara Tampere
In an evenly played game, Tappara Tampere went into the Swedish capital and beat Djurgarden. The key moments of the game were in the middle of the second period, when in the span of 1:36 Djurgarden took a 2–1 lead, but then Tappara scored twice to take a lead they'd never relinquish. Youngster Teemu Laine led the Tappara attack with 2 goals and 1 assist."Overall I think it was an even game between two strong teams, but it's the small mistakes that were the deciding factor in Tappara's victory tonight. In my opinion we gave them three goals on individual mistakes," said Djurgarden head coach Stefan Nyman. "Our penalty killing was solid tonight and the power play resulted in two goals even though we didnt play that good on our PP."
Storhamar Hamar 2–3 Sparta Prague
Sparta were favoured and looked like they'd win easily after scoring twice in the first period, but urged on by a sellout home crowd of over 4,700, Storhamar battled back to tie the game in the second. Then Michal Cajkovsky scored the winning goal on the power play in the 48th minute. Cajkovsky, Tomas Netik and defenceman Michal Barinka each had 3 points for Sparta, while goalie Robert Hestmann was Storhamar's big star, stopping 35 of 38 shots.Gap Rapaces 4–5 ZSC Lions Zurich
In what might have been the game of the night, the Gap Rapaces just wouldn't go away against the one-time European champion ZSC Lions. Urged on by their festive fans who never stopped singing the whole night, they took the early lead, Zurich battled back to take the lead and twice led by two goals, but the home team kept closing the Gap. Eventually, they fell by a single goal, but it was a tremendous effort. Marc-Andre Bernier was their offensive sparkplug with 2 goals and 2 assists, while Chris Foucault scored 3 times for Zurich – the fourth hat-trick of the day.Zurich coach Marc Crawford thought, "Offensively we played well, defensively we weren't very good and didn't kill penalties very well. That would be what we need to improve – our penalty killing. One of the great things about playing early games is that you can look at what you're trying to accomplish, and show you players what they need to improve on."
Fribourg-Gotteron 3–4 Lukko Rauma (SO)
These CHL playoff teams from last year engaged in the first overtime of this year's CHL, and then the first shootout, which Lukko won. Most of the scoring was done early on, with Fribourg ahead 3–2 after 7:23 of play, when Eetu Koski gave Lukko the lead on the power play. After that there was only one more goal before the shootout, when Nathan Marchon tied it in the 28th minute. Aaron Gagnon, Lukko's big offensive player, scored in back-to-back shootout attempts to give his team the victory.Farjestad Karlstad 0–4 HC Davos
Swiss champions HC Davos are off to a good start in the CHL, going into Karlstad and shutting out fabled Farjestad. After a scoreless first period, they broke the game open with three goals in the second, then put it away with one in the third. Dario Simion and captain Andreas Ambuhl had 1 goal and 1 assist each, while Leonardo Genoni stopped all 25 shots he faced."I'm surprised that we came off with a 4–0 win against a team like Farjestad," said Marcus Paulsson, a former Farjestad player who scored one of Davos's goals. "They have really good players throughout their organization and will come up big in future games, but didn't really reach their standards tonight. It felt great to score but I'm not very satisfied with my game overall, but we won and that's what's important. The CHL is a new thing for us and it feels great to have started it off this good!"
Krefeld Pinguine 0–2 Karpat Oulu
The game in Krefeld was a goaltending duel between Tomas Duba and Sami Aittokallio, with Aittokallio stopping all 32 shots he faced, and Duba 31 of 33. Ivan Huml opened the scoring early in the second period and Mika Niemi added to the lead shorthanded early in the third."It wasn’t easy game," thought Karpat forward Mika Pyorala. "There were lot of penalties so it was hard to get into the game but I think the key was that we stuck together. There were five guys all the time close to each other and that’s how we get them under pressure. I think that‘s why we won."
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