After 32 teams started their Champions Hockey League journeys back in August, only two remain as we look to crown our winner on Tuesday night, with the reigning and three-time champions Frölunda Indians take on Mountfield HK who are featuring in their first ever CHL final.
The stage is set with Mountfield hosting the final, which sees the third meeting of the year between the two sides. To start the season, the two teams went to battle in Group H, both emerging to the playoffs where they’ve both fought hard to be the last two teams standing.
Mountfield’s journey to the final has been a great story to follow, emerging from the Group Stage for the first time ever, before Marek Mazanec has put in some of the best performances of his entire career in the playoffs to help his team all the way to the final, with a shutout in each round of the playoffs, and allowing just three goals.
For Frölunda, they’ve had their fair share of speedbumps along the way. It wasn’t a great start to their title defense as they dropped their opening two games of the Group Stage, and have had close calls throughout the playoffs, but their experience has shone through to mount some impressive comebacks to advance to their fifth ever CHL final.
The usual suspects will be called upon once again for Frölunda as Ryan Lasch continues to impress in the CHL, leading the tournament in all-time scoring but also leading this year’s edition with 21-points heading into the final. Five players on the Frölunda’s roster make up the top 10 in points this year, so you’d expect them to be going at it in the final; but the Mountfield defense has proven to be incredibly difficult to get past, with Mazanec being incredible in net, but that’s not to say that they haven’t had strong offensive performances from the likes of Matěj Chalupa.
Heading into the contest, both sides have had fairly even runs of form with Mountfield wining six of their last 10 games compared to the five won by Frölunda, but recent form goes completely out of the window in the final, with just one game separating one of these teams from being crowned the 2019/20 Champions Hockey League.