Mountfield HK's historic journey to the Champions Hockey League Quarter-Finals owed a lot to the performances of goalie Marek Manzanec. In the first leg this week he allowed just one goal against EV Zug to keep the matchup very much alive going into the return game.

"Our goal is pretty clear - just not to concede and play responsibly in our own zone,"  begin the Czech netminder. "Chances will come, and we had quite a few at the other end. Weirdly enough, we probably play better away from home but we definitely like it in our own arena. We have our fans here, and we hope they'll come with us to Zug."

Mountfield will start at 1-1 on aggregate in Zug in the return game, something Manzanec thought was a fair reflection on the game. "We will need to score some more goals in the next game, but we had more than enough chances to do so in our home leg," explained the 28-year-old. "Their goalie played great, he made few fantastic saves, so I think that 1-1 was a pretty fair result. It's a tough battle with them, it's all about us defending the neutral zone and not letting them outnumber us. One of the few times we gave up a breakaway they scored on us, we weren't surprised by that but it's something we have to be aware of."

The game was notable, as were Zug's visits to Pilsen in the Group Stage, for the return to his homeland of forward Jan Kovář, someone Mazanec knows very well. He was definitely noticeable, if nothing else because he usually plays just in front of the crease! This time they put him up on the hash marks so he could one-time it, and I could see him up there," said the goalie, who then joked: "But I'll have to have a word with him about hitting me in the mask - you can't do that to a friend!"