Last week in Munich, neither side could break the deadlock as Red Bull Munich met Red Bull Salzburg in the first leg of their Semi-Final matchup in this year’s Champions Hockey League.

Goaltending was the difference in the first 60 minutes, and as the tie moved 144 kilometres away to the Austrian city of Salzburg, and with it still tied at 0-0, it was all to play for as the two teams battled out for a chance to meet the Frölunda Indians, who defeated HC Pilsen in the other Semi-Final.

Coming into the return leg, Red Bull Munich’s Trevor Parkes held the tournament lead in goals with nine on the season, while it’s the defensive work of Stephen Michalek in the Salzburg net that has helped the team advance as far as they have with a .935 save percentage through nine appearances.

Both sides continued with the physical play we saw from the first leg, but still struggled to find the opening goal of the series.

Eventually, in front of a sell-out crowd, Salzburg finally grabbed the opener. Just over midway through the opening period, Alexander Rauchenwald jumped on a loose puck when Danny aus den Birken couldn't control an initial shot by Alexander Pallestrang, tucking it past the German international netminder to give the hosts a 1-0 advantage with 13:26 played on the night and 73:26 played of the two legs.

After giving up the opening goal, Munich responded quickly, troubling the Salzburg defence and finally breaking through. Mark Voakes held the puck behind the net and waited until Michalek committed to one side of his net before feeding it out to the other side to Maximilian Kastner to shoot it off the netminder to tie thing up late in the period.

With Munich controlling a lot of the possession in the opening 20 minutes, it looked like things were winding down to a 1-1 tie at the break, but with Michalek dropping his stick, with just seconds left the visitors added a second as Yannic Seidenberg beat the Salzburg goalie high on the glove side to make it a 2- 1 lead for Munich heading into the second period.

The second period saw the physicality continue, but it was back to the solid goaltending. Salzburg did put the puck across the line midway through, but Brant Harris swatted the puck a good four foot over the bar so it was immediately washed out, keeping it a 2-1 Munich lead to enter the final 20 minutes.

Munich continued to dominate possession in the second leg, forcing Michalek to make save after save, and after a shot from the point sailed wide of the cage, Yasin Ehliz picked the puck up behind the net, feeding it out in front to Patrick Hager who fired it through the legs of Michalek to go up 3-1 with less than 10 minutes to play.

Salzburg had a couple of opportunities with third-period powerplay attempts, but couldn't get any real danger to trouble aus den Birken, forcing them to enter the final five minutes of play still two goals behind.

As time was running out, it looked like Salzburg were running out of steam, with Munich closing them down with smart defensive play whenever they could, stopping Salzburg from getting any real opportunity to make a late comeback, and when the final buzzer went it was Red Bull Munich winning 3-1 to advance play Frölunda in the Final.