After Yunost Minsk defeated Oceláři Třinec 2-0 in the Belarusian capital on Gameday 2, Yunost were sitting pretty with five points while Třinec were still searching for their first goal of the competition. One game later, however, their situations are a bit different – Yunost lost in Lausanne while Třinec staged a comeback win at home to Lahti, leaving them just two points shy of the Belarusian club with this game on their home ice.

What can be said about Třinec’s Friday night game against the Pelicans? Through almost two periods, they trailed 3-0, still hadn’t scored a goal and were facing the strong possibility of being pointless after three games, which would have made their playoff chances highly unlikely. But after scoring five goals in a row, they enter this game brimming with confidence and a chance to overtake Minsk for second place in Group D. Tomáš Kundrátek, Tomáš Marcinko and Matěj Stránský all had two points on Friday.

Although they lost on Friday, Yunost’s situation is still not bad. They still sit second in the group with five points and they gave Lausanne HC a good battle, falling only 3-2. Now going into Třinec, their objective will be to pick up whatever points they can, because even one would mean that they stay ahead of the Czech team in the standings and would give them the head-to-head tiebreaker. Dmitri Kolgotin is the team’s top scorer with four points, all assists. Their top goal-scorer is Vsevolod Kashkar with two.