Kärpät Oulu vs. ZSC Lions could easily have been a Champions Hockey League final - both teams came into this year's tournament as national champions and with high expectations.
However one of them will be going home early on as the two sides meet in the Round of 16. With the winners of this matchup playing the victors from the Red Bull Salzburg - Rouen Dragon series, both teams will almost certainly think the Semi-Finals are within reach if they can get past this stage.
Kärpät missed out on the Champions Hockey League altogether last season after a poor previous year in Finland, that coming a season after they hosted the CHL final and lost out to Frölunda. They currently lead the Liiga this season, and comfortably came through their CHL group dropping only four points. Slovak forward Michal Krištof leads the team in points with 3+6, while a lot of eyes have also been in young prospects Rasmus Kupari and Aleksi Heponiemi who have seven and five points respectively so far. In goal Jussi Rynnäs played 4/6 Group Stage games saving 88.24% of shots. He'll want to up that in this round.
Under new Head Coach Serge Aubin, the ZSC Lions finally beat Frölunda in the Group Stage after failing to do so last season, and in the end qualified relatively comfortably - though they had to mathematically wait until the last Game Day to secure it. With 26 goals for they were one of the more productive teams in the Group Stage, but with 18 goals against only Storhamar had a worse record from the 16 qualifiers. Lukas Flüeler played all bar one of the Group Stage games, saving 88.80% of shots, while Denis Hollenstein and Roman Červenka lead the team for points with 2+5 each.