Red Bull Munich won their first two games at home and HC05 Banská Bystrica lost both of theirs on the road. Now it’s Munich that heads on the road while Banská Bystrica stay in Slovakia. When these teams met in Bavaria on Saturday, the final score was 3-0; however, it was still 1-0 after two periods and the last goal came in the dying seconds. Patrick Hager had a goal and an assist and Kevin Reich made 21 saves for the shutout. Tyler Beskorowany had a solid game in goal for Banská Bystrica, stopping 45 of 48.

In addition to their loss in Munich, Banská Bystrica lost 6-1 away to Färjestad. Mitchell Wahl has scored the team’s only goal in the competition so far and he won’t be in the lineup for this game, serving a one-game suspension. The two-time reigning Slovak champs knew this would be a difficult group to advance from and it’s proving to be just that. If they want to remain in contention, they’re going to have to pick up some points from these two games at home and that means figuring out a way to produce some offence against a team that has yet to concede a goal.

Munich went all the way to the CHL Final last season and they’ve started this season in fine form, with back-to-back 3-0 victories over HC Ambrì-Piotta and Banská Bystrica on home ice. If they can duplicate that feat against those same two teams away, they’ll punch their ticket into the next round, but don’t expect that to be easy, as both teams are bound to come up with better efforts on their own ice. Their offence has been spread pretty evenly so far, led by Chris Bourque with three assists and last season’s CHL MVP Trevor Parkes with two goals. With both Reich and Danny aus den Birken posting shutouts so far, they are confident with whoever starts in goal.