The Champions Hockey League’s regular season wrapped up last week. Heading into the last two nights of games, 12 of the 16 playoff spots had been secured, with seven teams in contention for the four remaining places.
On Tuesday, HK Nitra defeated Rogle Angelholm 5-1, KooKoo Kuovola beat Adler Mannheim 5-2, Tappara Tampere doubled GKS Tychy 6-3 and defending champion Frolunda Gothenburg drubbed the Bordeaux Boxers 11-1. Then on Wednesday, the Graz 99ers defeated Storhamar Hamar 6-3, and Bili Tygri Liberec shut out HC Davos 2-0.
As a result, Tappara, KooKoo, Liberec and Davos will continue in the European club championship, while Nitra, Storhamar and Bordeaux Boxers were left outside looking in.
Also on the final day, Czech club HC Plzen secured the top seed with a 6-3 win in Finland over SaiPa Lappeenranta, becoming the only club to finish the regular season with a perfect record of six regulation victories for 18 points.
Statistical leaders
Plzen scored more goals than any other team in the regular season with 30 goals, which was six more than Skelleftea AIK and Kolner Haie, the second and third seeds, who each scored 24. It was also a Czech team that had the best defence, as fourth-seeded Dynamo Pardubice was scored on only nine times and was the only team to record two shutouts. Frolunda had the best power play at a staggering 40 percent, while Tappara Tampere had the best penalty kill at 93.75 percent.
Kolner Haie had the best attendance in the regular season with an average of 12,336 spectators per game at Cologne’s Lanxess Arena. That was heavily influenced by a CHL-record crowd of 18,104 that came out to watch the team’s 5-2 win over Frolunda on 10 September.
Individually, the top three scorers were all from Kolner Haie – Marcel Noebels with 12 points, Danish ex-NHLer Patrick Russell with 11 and Canadian Gregor MacLeod with 10. Among defencemen, the points leaders were Nicolas Mattinen of Mannheim and Jonathan Pudas of Skelleftea with eight each.
Mattinen had 24 shots on goal from the back end to lead all CHL shooters – two ahead of Frolunda’s Samuel Fagemo. Eisbaren Berlin’s Leonhard Pfoderl had four power-play goals, Mannheim’s Anthony Greco had two shorthanded goals, Kolner Haie’s Juhani Tyrvainen had 33 penalty minutes and Mannheim’s Patrick Brown threw 12 hits. A pair of Herning Blue Fox defencemen – John Amorosa and Emil Kristensen – were the ice-time leaders with over 23 minutes each per game.
The busiest goaltender in the CHL regular season was the Tomas Fucik of the Polish national team, who made 203 saves for GKS Tychy, while Plzen’s Jan Ruzicka won all four of his starts, making him the wins leader. Among goalies who appeared in at least three games, Pardubice’s Roman Will had the best save percentage (95.65) and goals-against average (1.31).
Looking ahead to the playoffs
Since the CHL’s relaunch in 2014-15, the competition has been dominated by clubs from Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Czechia and Germany. Those five countries have accounted for all of the teams to reach the final and that trend will continue this season, as the 16 teams remaining are all from those countries.
Here are the round of 16 match-ups, based on the final regular season standings:
• (1) HC Plzen [CZE] vs (16) HC Davos [SUI]
• (2) Skelleftea AIK [SWE] vs (15) Rogle Angelholm [SWE]
• (3) Kolner Haie [GER] vs (14) Bili Tygri Liberec [CZE]
• (4) Dynamo Pardubice [CZE] vs (13) SaiPa Lappeenranta [FIN]
• (5) Eisbaren Berlin [GER] vs (12) KooKoo Kouvola [FIN]
• (6) Frolunda Gothenburg [SWE] vs (11) Vaxjo Lakers [SWE]
• (7) Geneve-Servette [SUI] vs (10) Fribourg-Gotteron [SUI]
• (8) Adler Mannheim [GER] vs (9) Tappara Tampere [FIN]
The first games will be played at the homes of the lower-seeded teams on 10 – 11 November, with the return games being hosted by the higher-seeded teams on 17 – 18 November. Find the schedule at the CHL website.
No overtime will be played after the first games, regardless of the score. If the teams are tied on aggregate score after both games are played, the series winner will be determined by a 10-minute 3-on-3 sudden-death overtime period, followed, if necessary, by a penalty shootout.
The eight winners advance to the quarter-finals, which will be played in December, and those four winners advance to the semi-finals, which will be played in January. The one-game final is scheduled for Tuesday, 23 February.
Teams won’t be reseeded following each round. Rather, they’ll stay in their brackets all the way to the final.
As was the case in the regular season, CHL playoff games will be streamed on IIHF.TV, with availability depending on location.