Only one point separates Fribourg-Gottéron and HK Nitra in the Champions Hockey League Regular Season Standings as the teams prepare to face off in Switzerland on Game Day 5.

Fribourg have six points and sit 13th while Nitra have five and sit 16th, as both teams scramble to try to stay above the Playoff cut-off line. This is Nitra’s first-ever CHL game against a Swiss opponent, while Fribourg have had three wins and a tie against HC Košice and Slovan Bratislava in past seasons.

Fribourg, Switzerland’s defending champions, have relied on a balanced offensive attack with four players – forwards Marcus Sörensen and Anthony Richard and defencemen Michael Kapla and Yannick Rathgeb – recording four points each. Sörensen, Kapla and Rathgeb are also the team’s three highest ice earners, Rathgeb and Sörensen have eight blocked shots each, and Rathgeb has a team-leading 14 shots on goal.

Nitra are one of the CHL’s most physical teams so far with 7.75 hits per game – forward Tomáš Hrnka leads the team with five hits. The Slovak champs have struggled to generate offence with nine goals so far – Adrián Holešinský, Hrnka and defenceman Marko Stacha lead with three points each. Defenceman Zach Osburn leads Nitra with 12 shots on goal and an average ice time of 20:27 minutes per game on average.