It's winner take all on Wednesday as Bílí Tygři Liberec travel to northern Finland to take on Kärpät Oulu in a game that will decide Group A. Liberec must win in regulation time to advance; anything else and it will be Kärpät. As they prepared for their journey, all the Liberec players knew what they were playing for.
by Radoslav Vavrina
"I think everybody knows what's at stake here." Sure, it could be called D-Day, and that's for each side, both Kärpät Oulu and Bílí Tygři Liberec.
Jakub Valský may not be one of the Czech team's top scorers but his grit, heart and willingness to pay the price has helped him become a member of the Czech national team. And as his White Tigers travel to Oulu for Wednesday's game, it will be all about, grit, heart, winning and surviving. "If we win, we advance. If not, not many second-place teams get to join the group winners in the next stage," warns the Kladno native.
And after sub-par performances at previous European Trophy tournaments, that's a good thing for Liberec. "I'm happy that we even get to play for something now at the end of the group stage," said Pavel Hynek, the Liberec head coach as he looked back at the last game between these two clubs. "We almost came back from a 4-0 deficit."
Failing to play well early on in games has been a big problem for the northern Bohemian club, and not just in the Champions Hockey League. In fact, 10 games into this Czech Extraliga season, the Tigers haven't won a first period yet and have only won two second periods so far amidst a 3-1-0-6 record that places them 10th in the standings.
The team has been much better than that in the CHL, though, and that makes Coach Hynek happy. "The only part of our CHL campaign that I can't be happy with are the second and third periods in Košice where we took too many penalties," admitted the 44-year-old coach. "But we beat Kölner Haie on both occassions and here in CHL all the game are prestigeous."
Maybe the reason why Liberec have been much better in international competition than in their domestic league is the different playing style. "The Extraliga is a little different and I'd say the hockey is more physical than in the CHL, where it's much faster," said Michal Bulíř, the Cramo Top Scorer for Liberec five games into the campaign.
While in 10 Extraliga games the young Liberec native has only been able to collect five points, in CHL scoring he's ranked ninth with seven points after just five games. "The hockey's a little different and it might suit me more," Bulíř added. "I'll be happy if I get some more points in Finland now and help the team win this one."
To get that done will be a tough task for the White Tigers. When these two teams met on Game Day 1 Kärpät played great on the road, only allowing Liberec to score three goals after stepping off the gas already up by four.
"We will need to match their speed, toughness and aggressiveness to be able to play with them," acknowledged Bulíř. "They have a tough combination of speed and skill, plus they like to dump the puck in," added Valský.
And with a couple of players missing, it won't be easy to match Kärpät in these areas. Team captain Jan Výtisk has been out with an ankle injury for while now and not making the trip to Northern Finland will be ferocious forwards Jan Víšek, Lukáš Krenželok and Koba Jass, as well as defensive defenceman Lukáš Derner, versatile blueliner Petr Gřegořek and defensive forward Jaroslav Vlach.
"We will call up some players from our farm team in Benátky nad Jizerou and I think it will be a great opportunity for them to play a quality game," Hynek believes. Also unsure is who will start for Liberec in the net. Current number-one goalie Ján Lašák has played more so far this season, but Marek Schwarz has some experience with Finnish hockey, having played for TPS back in 2011-12.
The team left for Prague at 9:00 Tuesday morning and from there flew to Helsinki for a connection flight north of the Arctic Circle and the northern outpost of Oulu. Wednesday's game starts at 18:30 local time in Finland, 17:30 CET.