With three shutouts and some other very fine performances, this Saturday in the CHL belonged to the goaltenders.
ZSC Lions Zurich 4–1 ERC Ingolstadt
ZSC Lions Zurich came out in their second straight game against ERC Ingolstadt wanting to get pucks on net, but for 30 minutes Timo Pielmeier looked unbeatable. At the other end, Lukas Flueler looked beatable. John Laliberte got one past him in the first period but it was called back due to a crease violation, then Petr Taticek opened the scoring for Ingolstadt in the 26th minute on the power play, picking up the rebound after a long pass from Pielmeier to Petr Pohl.
In the last half of the second period, ZSC took over the game, however. Twice they struck on the power play, sandwiched around Chris Baltisberger's game-winning goal at even strength. They added one more in the third period. Roman Wick and Robert Nilsson each had three points.
Read more in Gamecentre
Stavanger Oilers 0–3 HC Pilsen
In HC Pilsen's first-ever CHL game, they got two goals and one assist from Dominik Kubalik and a 23-save shutout from Marek Machovsky to beat the Stavanger Oilers 3-0.
After a defensively-played first period with few scoring chances, Kubalik who put his stamp on the game -n the second with two goals three minutes apart. The first was a brilliant wrist shot from the top of the right-wing circle for the left-shooting Kubalik that beat Ruben Smith over the glove. The second came from a nice behind-the-back pass from Miroslav Indrak, with Kubalik then whipping another great wrister that beat Smith short-side.
The biggest threat to Machovsky's shutout came on a Josh Soares breakaway in the 47th minute, but the Pilsen goalie refused to yield. Then Kubalik and Indrak again combined to finish the scoring – Indrak putting in the rebound after Smith stopped Kubalik in alone.
Krefeld Pinguine 2–0 Vitkovice Ostrava
Both teams had lost their opening Group E encounter to Karpat Oulu, and for the first 53 minutes of this one neither team made a move to win this one either. But when the game was on the line, Krefeld Pinguine's captain and living legend, Daniel Pietta, set up two goals to give his team all the offence it needed. First he worked a nice give-and-go with Marcel Muller, backhanding a pass from the top of the circle that went off Muller's skate and in with 6:41 to play. After a video review, the goal was confirmed. With less than three minutes to play,he put the game away by sending a pass from behind the net out front for Dragan Umicevic to bang home.
Until that point, neither Krefeld's Patrik Galbraith or Vitkovice's Patrik Bartosak had shown any chinks in their armour. In the end, it was the Dane Galbraith who was victorious in the duel, making 30 saves for the shutout to move his team into second place in the group.
KalPa Kuopio 1–2 Skelleftea AIK
For the second game in a row, Skelleftea AIK had to get down into the trenches against an opponent that most would figure is below them talent-wise On Thursday they lost in overtime in Vienna. Today they were outshot badly by KalPa Kuopio, but thanks to the netminding of Gustaf Lindvall they eeked out a 2-1 victory.
After a defensive first period without a lot of chances either way, Skelleftea opened the scoring with two goals less than six minutes apart – first Henrik Hetta backhanding in the rebound on the power play, then Par Lindholm finishing off a 2-on-1 after a nice pass from Andrew Calof. Joni Niko shovelled in a loose puck to get KalPa on the board late in the second period.
In the third, KalPa pressed hard for the equalizer and outshot Skelleftea badly – 28-19 in the game – but just couldn't manage to come up with a point in their first CHL game of the new season.
Red Bull Salzburg 8–1 Sheffield Steelers
A tight opening period saw both sides trade good chances with the game played at a frantic pace, Steelers' netminder Ervins Mustukovs called into action to make some smart saves early on. The score stayed level until Sheffield's Achilles heel from the HV71 game kicked in – taking penalties. William Thomas scoring at 15:35 on the power play to put the Red Bulls ahead shortly before the break.
Period two started as a dream for the hosts, and a disaster for the visitors. Manuel Latusa scored just under a minute on another power play to make it two, and Thomas followed up two minutes later to put the hosts three ahead with less than 25 minutes played. Sheffield needed a response and, playing with a man advantage, got one through Christoffer Bjorklund around the 26-minute mark. The scored stayed at 3-1 until 37:58, when Tommy Raffl netted net to put Salzburg 4-1 ahead with 40 minutes played.
The final period was somewhat of a walkover for the home side. Four unanswered goals as Sheffield tired and continued to take minors saw the hosts run out 8-1 winners in the end, will the star of the game being the aforementioned Thomas who help himself to four goals on the night.
HC Kosice 2–3 Black Wings Linz
With both teams dropping their first Group M games on home ice to SC Bern, this was a big game to avoid falling into third place – especially for Kosice, who didn't want to come away with no points from their two home games. However, that's exactly what happened, as Dan Dasilva scored on a beautiful backhander with exactly 9:00 to play to break a 2-2 deadlock in favour of Linz.
Kosice held a wide margin in play on the night, outshooting Linz 39-18, but the story of the game was Michael Ouzas, who was simply brilliant. He was brilliant in the first period when he stopped all 12 shots he faced and his team escaped with a 1-0 lead. The only two times he got beat were 59 seconds apart in the second period. Then he was brilliant the rest of the way, when Linz tied and went ahead, and then had to kill off a penalty in the dying minutes with Kosice putting on heavy pressure.
Fribourg-Gotteron 3–0 Red Bull Munich
In Group F's first game, Fribourg-Gotteron got a goal and an assist from Roman Cervenka and a 33-save shutout from Benjamin Conz to beat Red Bull Munich 3-0 on home ice.
Flavio Schmutz opened the scoring in the 8th minute, one-timing a shot from right in front that David Leggio had no chance on. Munich pressed really hard for the equalizer in the first half of the second period but Conz made several big saves, especially on a penalty kill. Then just past the game's midpoint, Cervenka made a perfect pass to Killian Moffatt, who made it 2-0.
Munich fired 15 shots at Conz in the third period, but the Swiss keeper turned them all away. Cervenka iced the game with an empty-net goal in the late going.