After suffering back to back losses against Group Leaders HC Pilsen, JYP will be relieved to see the return of the side that they have claimed their only win against. Last year’s winners had five different scorers register their first goals of the tournament that day but have only had another two join the illustrious club since. One crucial name missing from that list is Jarko Immonen, who was their highest point scorer in the CHL last season with four goals and six assists.  

Bystrica bounced back from their opening defeat against the Fins with a 5-2 win over HC Lugano, who similarly find themselves on only three points, with second line forward Tomáš Zigo contributing two goals in the performance. They fell short however in the away fixture after only managing to score one goal in contrast to Lugano’s four.

JYP would like to think that they’ve got their two toughest fixtures out of the way and will resume winning ways against the Slovakian champions. They, on the other hand, will take great pleasure knowing they have the potential to ruin the home sides defence of the trophy that they battled so hard to win in February earlier this year.