Swiss club EHC Biel-Bienne are one of five teams in the Champions Hockey League with a perfect record of six points after two games and rank second overall with a +7 goal difference. They’ve looked very good in two opening home games against HC Košice from Slovakia and HC Innsbruck from Austria with wins by scores of 3-1 and 6-1. Now things will get tougher, however, as they head to Sweden for two games.

First up is Färjestad Karlstad. Färjestad earned a split on the road, opening with a 4-2 win over the Stavanger Oilers in Norway before falling 3-2 to ERC Ingolstadt in Germany – a tight game where the Swedish squad held the edge in play but had trouble scoring. Now with two games at home, Färjestad have a chance to improve their standing, which is 12th heading into Game Day 3.

These are two of the better teams in the competition at generating offence, with both ranking in the top four in expected goals. The difference is that Biel-Bienne have been a lot more opportunistic with their chances. We’ll see how Färjestad fare against a team that has allowed only one goal in each game so far.

Färjestad’s Michael Lindqvist leads the CHL with 14 shots on goal. Only two of those have found the back of the net, but that’s still enough to lead the team – nobody on Färjestad has more than two points so far. Lindqvist also ranks sixth among CHL forwards with an average TOI of 20:41.

For Biel-Bienne, the offence has been led from the back end, with four points from defenceman Ville Pokka. Also prominent among the team’s D-men is Yannick Rathgeb, whose four hits are tied for second in the competition.