When these teams met in Northern Ireland last Thursday, the Belfast Giants scored three power-play goals en route to a 5-4 victory. Brian Ward scored twice for the Giants, who were 3-for-13 with the man advantage while Bílí Tygři Liberec were 2-for-3 – both of their power-play goals were scored by Libor Hudáček. Largely due to that descrepancy, Belfast outshot Liberec 41-24 in the game. Now as the teams get set to meet again in the Czech Republic a week later, the Giants find themselves in a three-way tie for first in Group C with four points, while the White Tigers are still looking to get off the scheid.

With nobody running away in Group C, Liberec have to still feel confident that they can fight back into a playoff spot, but they’re probably going to need to win both games at home and to do that, they’re going to have to stay out of the penalty box. Following the defeat in Belfast, they played a much more disciplined game in Luleå and, although they lost 4-1, the game was closer than the score indicated after Luleå scored twice in the last five minutes. This team knows it can score, led by Hudáček with two goals and defenceman Ladislav Šmíd with two assists. Justin Peters played both of the first two games in goal and it remains to be seen if that will continue.

After their win over Liberec, Belfast fell to the Augsburger Panther 3-2 in overtime. Four points are a good start, but they won’t be enough to advance so they’ll almost certainly have to pick up some points away from home at some point in this very tight group. Getting something in Liberec would help keep the Czech team in the rear-view mirror before a return engagement with Augsburg. The team’s shown an ability to score with seven goals and three points each so far from Jordan Smotherman, Liam Morgan and defenceman Patrick Mullen. Shane Owen is the only netminder that’s seen any action for Belfast so far.