Fribourg wary of Kosice threat

Of the six Swiss teams in this year's CHL, five came out group winners, including Fribourg-Gotteron. They won three out of four games, while HC Kosice lost three out of four. Offensively, these two teams might be quite comparable, but Friboug's defence appears to be stingier. Fribourg enter this home-and-home series as clear favourites, but Kosice put up a good fight in this round last year against Skelleftea, so they definitely can't be taken lightly.

Group F winners Fribourg-Gotteron started with two home games and scored a pair of three-goal wins, first shutting out Red Bull Munich 3-0 and then beating Orli Znojmo 5-2. After winning in Znojmo 3-1, they lost their final game by the same score in Munich – however, that result assured them top spot in the group. After that game, Munich could do no better than tie them in points, and they had outscored them on aggregate by one goal. Like all Swiss teams, Fribourg looked very strong in the group stage. Now they face a new challenge in Kosice, as they've never faced a Slovak club in the CHL.

Last year's regular season winners from Slovakia lost three of four games in  the group stage, but they are proceeding to the elimination stage. Kosice started the new campaign of the Champions Hockey League with two home losses, 6-3 to Bern and 3-2 to Linz. After that, they took three important points from Austrian ice when they came back from 0-3 down to 4-3 – had they not taken three points, they would have been eliminated. It tied Kosice and Linz in points and head-to-head goals, but assured Kosice would win the tie-breaker with a higher score in their victory. In the last game of Group M, which was meaningless to the standings, Bern defeated Kosice 3-1 at home. As Bern was quite a tough test for Kosice, they have their work cut out for them in Fribourg.