Kometa Brno meeting Frölunda Indians is a clash of teams with two big titles under their belts - the Czech side have won their own domestic league the past two seasons running, something that had not been done for some time; the Swedes won two straight CHL titles, something that no-one else has yet managed to achieve.
Kometa got past Tappara Tampere in the Round of 16 in somewhat surpassingly convincing fashion, given that they were seeded as group runners-up in the first playoff round. They were helped by a huge 5-1 win which gave them a big lead heading up to Finland, and with their schedule again having the home leg first in this round Frölunda will be wary of just how good Kometa are at home. In the two CHL seasons so far, Kometa have only lost two of 11 home games - those being to EV Zug this season, when they were already qualified, and when JYP knocked them out in last year's Round of 16.
The Czech champions have had decent scoring depth, with their 28 goals so far coming from 15 different sources. In net they'll need Karel Vejmelka to keep his save percentage as high as he did in the home game against Tappara, stopping almost 97%.
Frölunda's path to the Quarter-Finals was in a lot more doubt than Kometa's. The Swedes were twice trailing HC Lugano in the return leg before tying the game, and series, with just under eight minutes to go and then winning it with only 2:47 left to play. Ryan Lasch's first goals in this season's CHL were timely for his team, and also kept him as the competition's leading points scorer. The Indians have also shared the goals around with 16 scorers so far in the CHL this season, eight of their 28 also coming from defencemen.
Both Johan Mattsson, who's played the majority of CHL games, and Johan Gustafsson, have save percentages will over 90%; and with only 16 goals against overall, Frölunda have the meanest defence left in the competition.