Red Bull Munich are back for another go at the Champions Hockey League in 2016–17 after finishing top spot of the regular season standings in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga.
CHL News
INGOLSTADT – For the second year in a row, Red Bull Munich have qualified for the Champions Hockey League based on their regular season finish in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. Last season they finished 2nd behind CHL founding members and eventual national champions Adler Mannheim. This year they finished first, needing a 3–1 victory on the final day of the season on the road over ERC Ingolstadt to secure top spot.
The race went right down to the wire, with six teams still in contention to finish 1st with three rounds to go in the regular season. Entering play on the final Sunday, Munich and the Iserlohn Roosters were tied for top spot with 91 points each, 2 up on CHL founding members Eisbaren Berlin. Whoever finished with more points between Munich and Iserlohn would get the CHL berth, whether it was for 1st place or for 2nd behind Berlin. Munich held the tie-breaker, so as soon as Iserlohn lost 1–0 on home ice to Kolner Haie, the CHL spot belonged to Munich. With Berlin shutting out Mannheim 4–0, however, the Red Bulls needed the win to claim the No. 1 seed heading into the DEL playoffs. Led by a goal and an assist from captain Michael Wolf, they did that.
“This season was a challenge. We had a difficult start but the guys just kept battling. We have a good character club here, and we're looking forward to the playoffs,” head coach Don Jackson told the club website after the win in Ingolstadt. “Also one of the goals we achieved was to qualify for the Champions Hockey League, but I'm not going to think about that too much right now. We have another challenge ahead of us.”
The club from the Bavarian capital knows that entering the playoffs with a high seed does not guarantee success. Last season they were No. 2 but were swept in four straight games by 7th-seeded Grizzlys Wolfsburg in the quarter-finals. They don't know yet who their quarter-final opponents will be this season – they will have to see who survives the preliminary round for teams seeded 7 through 10. Those include Koln, Ingolstadt, the Straubing Tigers and Mannheim.
After Iserlohn in 2nd and Berlin in 3rd, the other teams already qualified to the quarters are Wolfsburg, Dusseldorfer EG and the Nuremburg Ice Tigers. Still one more CHL qualifier is to be determined from the DEL playoffs – whichever of the teams not already qualified to the 2016–17 CHL season survives the longest.
In this past season's CHL, Munich won Group H with a perfect 12 points against HC Kosice and KAC Klagenfurt, but then fell to Lukko Rauma in the Round of 32.
Criteria for qualifying for a B-License (2 per Founding League):
1. National/league champion
2. Regular season winner
3. Regular season runner-up
4. Playoff final runner-up
5. Higher regular season finish of losing playoff semi-finalists
6. Lower regular season finish of losing playoff semi-finalists
7. 3rd-placed team in regular season
8. 4th-placed team in regular season
9. 5th-placed team in regular season
10. 6th-placed team in regular season
11. Highest regular season finish of losing playoff quarter-finalists
12. 2nd-highest regular season finish of losing playoff quarter-finalists