Friday's first three games were all decided late. A couple of Czech teams had their hands full with Norwegian visitors. Storhamar got a breakaway goal in the last minute of the third period to score an upset win over Sparta Prague, and Stavanger also came up big in the 60th minute to tie Trinec, eventually losing in overtime. And Munich won their home CHL debut over Kosice to clinch a playoff spot.
Red Bull Munich 1–0 HC Kosice
HIGHLIGHTS
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)
HIGHLIGHTS
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
HIGHLIGHTS
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.”