One of the surprises of this year’s Champions Hockey League season so far was Mountfield HK’s 3-2 win in Gothenburg over the Frölunda Indians on Gameday 2. Now they’ll try to do it again on home ice in Hradec Králové and there’s a lot riding on it in a very tight Group H. Mountfield currently find themselves leading with six points and Frölunda are third with four and could overtake them with a regulation win. All four teams in the group are within three points of each other, so everything’s still up for grabs.

Mountfield didn’t look great in their opening loss in Cardiff, but since then were very impressive in a pair of wins over Frölunda away and home to Cardiff. They currently lead the group and want to stay there. They certainly face a tough opponent but even taking one point would ensure they stay ahead of Frölunda for now and would give them the all-important head-to-head tiebreaker. Tomáš Vincour leads the team with four points – he and Lukáš Cingel both have two goals. Former NHLer Marek Mazanec has played all three games in Mountfield’s goal.

Frölunda certainly got off to a slow start to this year’s competition by dropping their first two games at home, but may have announced their arrival with a convincing 5-1 win in Graz on Thursday and will look to keep that momentum going in what should be a tougher test. This team is loaded with players who can score and Rhett Rakhshani and Ryan Lasch have continued to do that this year with five points each. The pair are especially dangerous on the power play with captain Joel Lundqvist. who scored twice against Graz – that’s a fact Mountfield’s already aware of, as Rakhshani scored both of Frölunda’s goals on the powerplay in their previous meeting.