These two teams met back on Game Day 1 at BCF Arena in Fribourg, and it was the home side that came up with a dominant performance, outshooting visiting Oceláři Třinec 37-18 and outscoring them 6-2, thanks to two points each from Nathan Marchon and Andrei Bykov. It was tied 2-2 early in the second period before Julien Sprunger scored the go-ahead goal at 21:28 and Fribourg never looked back.

Two nights later, the established trends continued with Fribourg-Gottéron winning on home ice 5-2 over Slovan Bratislava and Třinec losing away 3-2 at Leksands IF. With the two teams at opposite ends of the spectrum in Group F, the question heading into Game Day 3 is, will those trends continue?

It may be early in the competition but the situation is already dire for Třinec, who now trail both Fribourg and Leksand by six points and have four games to catch at least one of them. They now must make up some ground facing the same two teams in the friendly confines of Werk Arena. While the Steelers need points, they’d be advised not to sit on the lead if they pull in front – they enter this game a -4 in goal difference against Fribourg, just in case it comes down to that tiebreaker.

Through two games, Třinec is led offensively by defenceman Tomáš Kundrátek with three points and centre Petr Vrána with two. Last year’s Extraliga playoff MVP Ondřej Kacetl was beaten six times the first time the teams met, although the loss certainly couldn’t be blamed on him. We’ll see if it’s Kacetl or the veteran Marek Mazanec who gets the call in this one.

After looking good at home, Fribourg now sets off to see if they can equal that success on the road. If they can, they could punch their ticket into the Round of 16 as early as Saturday. The good news is, it‘s not such a gruelling trip from Switzerland to the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and two cities just 250 km apart.

Fribourg have scored 11 goals in two CHL games. Their top scorer so far is defenceman Ryan Gunderson with four points, while Marchon has three goals. Like Třinec, Fribourg split the load in goal, with Reto Berra and Connor Hughes turning in similar performances last week, so we could see either one this game.

Both of these teams have had success in the CHL in the past, each reaching the Semi-Finals at one point. For Fribourg, it was in 2016/17 and for Třinec the following year, 2017/18.