The home side find themselves part of an unfortunate club, currently sitting on zero points with only the company of one other team in GKS Tychy. While the German side have conceded twice as many goals as they’ve managed to score, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that they’ve been unlucky in their campaign so far. Two close encounters with Kometa Brno have been overshadowed by a 6-1 loss to Group leaders EV Zug, who gave them a mountain to climb before the latter fixture with Brno eventually put the nail in their playoff coffin.

They won’t envy their opponents however, who need to take points from both of their remaining fixtures if they’re to stand a chance of progressing. Neman Grodno will also hope that Zug forget about the points they took from them and do them a favour by beating second place Brno on both occasions. The Belarussian side will need to get their special team up and running if they’re to take advantage of the nine powerplay goals that have been put past Berlin already.

Berlin will play for nothing but pride in front of their home fans while potentially making a major impact on the Group if they are successful in making Grodno’s experience equally as miserable as their own.