These two teams met in Sweden back on the opening night of the Champions Hockey League season, with Färjestad Karlstad comfortably winning 6-1. Since that game, both teams have played twice and won once. Currently, Färjestad sit second in Group G with six points and HC05 Banská Bystrica sit fourth with two.

The opening two games on the road did not go well for Banská Bystrica but they returned home with a solid effort on Thursday night, defeating CHL Finalists Red Bull Munich 3-2 in a shootout for their first two points of the competition. While they’re still last, they remain in the hunt and with a win in this game, could close the gap to second-placed Färjestad to just one point. Tyler Beskorowany has played every minute of every game in goal for Banská Bystrica and, after his solid outing on Thursday, expect him to start again against Färjestad. Despite the offensive output against Munich, the team still doesn’t have any player with more than one point after three games.

Färjestad took the maximum six points from their first two games at home, but then on Thursday dropped a 2-1 decision at Ambrì-Piotta – the same score by which they had previously beaten the Swiss team. With that, their leads over Ambrì-Piotta and Banská Bystrica have shrunk to three and four points, respectively. They would like to build up that cushion and get a win in Slovakia, but they surely know they won’t have as easy a time as they did on opening night. Michael Lindqvist leads Färjestad’s offence with five points so far, while Johan Ryno and Marcus Nilsson both have four. Markus Svensson has played all three games in goal and has a 1.76 goals-against average.