In their first CHL Round of 16 game, Yunost Minsk started well against last year’s finalists, but Red Bull Munich rebounded strongly and will take a 3-2 aggregate lead into the return game next week in Germany.

Minsk were back on their heels right away when they were called for two penalties that overlapped by 13 seconds and Munich generated a ton of pressure over almost four minutes of power-play time, but Igor Brikun was solid in goal. The home side killed them off and then opened the scoring against the flow of play on a nice solo effort from Yegor Gainetdinov at 8:26. Ivan Drozdov then made it 2-0 and it appeared that Minsk had scored a third goal in the last minute of the first period, but after a video review it was determined that goaltender interference had occurred.

Catching a break at the end of the opening period, Munich then went about working their way back and they finally got on the board in the 34th minute when Justin Schütz blocked a shot and then took it all the way to the other end of the rink. Brikun made an ill-advised poke-check attempt and Schütz slid the puck under him. That was the only goal of the middle frame, but Munich were set up well for the start of the third period when a couple of penalties went against Minsk in the last minute, including Artyom Anosov right at the horn.

Minsk came very close to killing off a 5-on-3 for the second time in the game, but Trevor Parkes converted a pass from Schütz late in the second penalty. Then Yasin Ehliz gave Munich their first lead two minutes later. Minsk would have desperately loved to pull back even before their home game ended, but Munich played stifling defence over the last 16 minutes, even keeping the puck in the Minsk end of the rink for much of the time.