We’ve looked at a lot of different categories over the past two months: leading goal scorers, top save percentages, the best powerplays and penalty kills, and Europe’s leading goals for and against averages per game.
Now we’re focussing back on the players and looking at the ironmen of the CHL: those logging huge amounts of minutes to help their teams. The only minimum qualification for this ranking is that a player needs to have played at least three games, so least half of a group stage campaign.
Europe’s leader is French international Antonin Manavian. Icing for Grenoble during the 2019/20 season, defenceman Manavian clocked up an average of 25 minutes and four seconds a game in his side’s six over the Group Stage – an average of over 40% of each game!
Taylor Aronson from the THOMAS SABO Ice Tigers comes next. The American played three games for the German side in 2018/19 and was on the ice for 24:34 each game on average. Another defenceman, Petteri Nikkilä is third, after playing an average of 24:06 for HPK Hämeenlinna this past season.
Finn Casimir Jürgens was Lahti Pelicans top guy for ice time on their debut in 2019/20 averaging 23:47 per game, while another Grenoble player completes the top five. Defenceman Yann Sauvé has iced in 13 CHL games with eight for Nottingham in 2017/18 and another five this season for les Brûleurs de Loups, with a combined average of 23:42 each game.
Canadian Graeme McCormack comes next after clocking 23 minutes and 36 seconds of average ice time with Gap Rapaces in 2017/18; while the seventh-highest player on our list is Willie Raskob, an American in his first European season who logged big minutes for Rungsted Seier Capital in their debut CHL season averaging 23:20 each game.
Patrick Mullen iced for an average of 23 minutes and eleven seconds in five games of Belfast Giants’ first-ever CHL season, and staying the UK Andrew Hotham notched an average of 22:56 over six games for the Cardiff Devils in 2017/18. Of the Top 10, Hotham has the highest points per game average at 0.83. Completing our list, with an average of 22 minutes and 39 seconds in 16 games, is Bilí Tygři Liberec’s veteran Ladislav Šmíd.
Honourable mentions
As you might have noticed, each player mentioned in the Top 10 was a defenceman! It’s probably no surprise with coaches rotating their top guys for large portions of each game and using them on special teams, too. The forward with the most average ice time is Rungsted’s Mario Lucia. The American scored three goals in his team’s six Group Stage fixtures and was on the ice for an average of 21:11 in each of those. The highest average time on ice for players with over 20 games in the CHL is held by Oceláři Třinec’s David Musil – over three seasons and 23 games, the defenseman has clocked up 18 minutes and 22 seconds on average each game.