Red Bull Munich 1–0 HC Kosice
Munich have now won all three of their games, but all three by narrow margins. They now become the sixth team to gain membership among the final 32 with a shutout win over Kosice. Both Danny Aus den Birken and Marcel Melichercik were perfect through 50 minutes, but Mads Christensen scored the game's only goal with 8:40 to go. It will now be the two head-to-head match-ups between Kosice and Klagenfurt that determine the group's other qualifier, with the first one coming in Austria on Sunday.“It means a lot to us in this competition,” Munich coach Don Jackson said about advancing to the next round. “We're playing a lot of good clubs and we played a big, strong team tonight. Credit to our guys, we were good in the battles and got the goal. We were strong in our own zone but also at fore-checking and keeping pucks in their zone.”
Said Kosice coach Peter Oremus, “We played a good game tonight, but you can't win a game without scoring. This is the standard that we need to play, and keep it going in the next two games. Now we battle Klagenfurt for the last play-off place, and we'll do our best.”
Ocelari Trinec 4–3 Stavanger Oilers (OT)
Last season, both teams took the away half of their two group-stage meetings. This year, they both won at home but Stavanger did manage to take a point in Trinec, taking Ocelari to overtime thanks to Josh Soares' equalizer with 48 seconds remaining in regulation time. In overtime, Zbynek Irgl scored the winner to get his team the bonus point. Captain Rostislav Klesla scored 2 goals for Trinec and added 1 assist. With the single point, Stavanger now lead Trinec by 1 point in a very tight Group L.“I’m satisfied with our play – we played the best game so far,” Trinec coach Jiri Kalous said afterward. “I saw areas of improvement. We scored on the power play, had a lot of chances. On the other hand, I’m disappointed with Stavanger’s tying goal in the very last minute. All the goals that we conceded were a bit easy for Stavanger. That’s the only thing I'm disappointed with about today’s game.”
“Trinec played much better in the first period – they were more aggressive,” said Stavanger coach Petter Thoresen. “We managed to end up with a tied score and that was good. The second period we played much harder, but we lost that period. Third period was okay from us, however, we let them score a couple of easy goals. We are okay with one point – Trinec deserved two points. Now we have to play against Kalpa, and we have to win it. They’re a good team, we can’t lose the puck as we did today. We have to be very careful with the puck because they are good on the transition.”
Sparta Prague 1–2 Storhamar Hamar
In one of the more improbable results so far in this Champions Hockey League season, Storhamar went into Prague and took 3 points. The winning goal came with just 38 seconds left in reguation time when captain Christian Larrivee stepped out of the penalty box, took a breakaway pass, and scored five-hole on Tomas Popperle. Sparta's lack of success on their power play was the reason for their defeat, going 0-for-7 with two failed 5-on-3 opportunities.“Of course we are really angry,” said an understandably upset Sparta coach, Josef Jandac. “To let in a goal that late in the game, moreover after the end of our power play . . . We didn’t play well on the power play – actually, we didn’t play well at all today. I warned the guys during the last power play to play it simple, that even the one point is really important and can decide the whole group. But we played it like bunch of fishermen. So we're angry and disappointed and the group is now really interesting.”
“These 3 points are very important for our team,” said Storhamar coach Alexander Smirnov. “I think we played a pretty good game today. We took too many penalties, but our penalty killing was very good. We looked at the video from last game when Sparta scored 2 goals on the power play. We talked to the guys today about playing smart. I think this was maybe the most important win for us ever, that I can think of. Now we play a new game tomorrow and we'll try to take some more points.”
Frolunda Gothenburg 3–2 JYP Jyvaskyla
In the first of two meetings between the teams that are battling for first place in Group N, Frolunda take 3 points at home thanks to a power-play goal by Artturi Lehkonen with 6:02 to play. It was a physical game full of emotion, which makes the return match-up between these two teams next weekend a highly-anticipated affair.
SC Bern 3–2 IFK Helsinki (SO)
It's been a day of dramatic finishes and teams who desperately needed to do so pulling out victories. Bern were less than five minutes away from losing their third straight game, but got a tying goal from Justin Krueger with 4:37 to play. After a scorless overtime period, they won in a shootout when Andrew Ebbett and Krueger both scored and Janick Schwendener denied all four shooters he faced. Mika Partanen scored both goals for IFK Helsinki, who remain 1st in Group A by the slightest of margins thanks to the single point.“It was a tight game. We got the go-ahead goal but then they got the equaliser, but after that we started to play again so a shame to lose in the shootout,” said IFK Helsinki coach Antti Tormanen.
“We were ready from the beginning, that was our goal before the game and the thing we lacked a bit in Helsinki,” said Schwendener, who made 26 saves in 65 minutes of hockey before the shootout. “It was too bad that we had to come back from a goal behind again but we managed to get the equalizer and went on to overtime and the shootout, which we won. Now everything in the group is open again and we are looking forward to our next game against Linkoping.”
HC Davos 0–1 Farjestad Karlstad (OT)
Once the regulation 60-minute hockey game was over, Davos had the magical 7th point they needed to secure a CHL playoff berth. Farjestad were in a more desperate situation, however, and they made sure they got their first 2 points of the competition when Robbie Earle scored a power-play goal in the first minute of overtime. Before that, Leonardo Genoni and Justin Pogge had been perfect, stopping 36 and 23 shots, respectively."We were a man down in the OT, they had more space and overall had too many PP opportunities in the game, they had to score eventually," reasoned Davos coach Marcus Paulsson. "It was a tight game, not a very good one though. We need to do everything a lot better. Hopefully it's better next time."
"You have to be very patient against a side like Davos, and make good decisions on the ice," said Farjestad coach Tommy Samuelsson. "It was an important game for us, we had a more patient gameplan to wait for the chances, some we had in the game but couldn't use them, but at least we got the win in OT."
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