No group has gone less according to pre-tournament predictions than Group F. Before the season, nobody would have picked TPS and Mountfield to be the two teams on the outside looking in heading into this game, but both have underperformed. Mountfield appeared to start strong with a home 5-1 win over TPS, but then inexplicably lost twice in a row to Nottingham, picking up a mere one point.

On the heels of that and looking ahead to the game in Turku, Mountfield forward Mislav Rosandič said: “That’s going to be another style of hockey, another game, so we’re going to watch some video, talk about some of our mistakes, get better and win our game.”

TPS lost their first two games in Hradec Králové and Bern, but then rallied in the third period to beat Bern at home on Thursday, so they may be turning things around.

On his team’s improvement, TPS head coach Kalle Kaskinen said: “This time we weren’t crazy in the offensive zone and we didn’t give away odd-man rushes after giveaways. That was the big thing - the skilled forwards of SC Bern were kept away from the danger zones.”